IRISH EXPENDITURE. [From the Times, February 8.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 514, 6 July 1850, Page 4

IRISH EXPENDITURE. [From the Times, February B.]

NoDe are less respected than a man who muddles away a large income nobody knows how. For all expenditure there should be something to show, and that something ought to have either usefulness, or dignity, or permanence to recommend it. But every now and then we meet with cases of expenditure perfectly mys'erious. A man of princely inheritance or preferment does nothing, makes no figure, helps nobody, has no expensive taste, yet not only spends every sixpence of his income, but gets into difficulties. His domain is neglected, his house ill furnished, his equipages shabby, his servants ill paid, his subscriptions in arrears, his hospitality mean, his sons stinted, his daughters portionless, his estate encumbered; — in fact, everything goes to rack and ruin about him. Instead* of performing his part in sustaining the great fabric of society as far as his influence extends, there is one vast dilapidation. He may be said to crumble and crash in every direction. Nobody can say where the money is gone. It has not benefited friends, assisted dependents, built churches* fertilized the soil, ornamented the country, delighted the town, or done anything that a man can lay his hand upon. It has all been dribbled and fribbled away on hollow pretences and petty occasions, without either system or object. It has won neither gratitude,' nor admiration, nor respect. Now, this is unfortunately the case with our dribblets of Irish expenditure. On Friday night the House of Commons: passed two' resolutions — one for the almost indefinite extension of time for the repayment of Irish advances ; and the other for the immediate adVance of £300,000. The resolutions were passed without a dissentient voice. The

grumblers of the House got up one after another, had their fling at some part of the Irish System, and were successively snubbed for their pains. What they said, however, was only too true. Every proverb of vicious economy that ever was ottered about throwing taoney into a ditch, about being penny wise knd pound foolish, or about putting meat into h bad skin, is fulfilled in Ireland. Into this jGreat Sahara an ocean might flow and be (lost. After the vast suras we have advanced 'or given within the last few years, amounting [ altogether to near twelve millions, Jastyear we advanced some hundreds of thousands ; this year we are to advance £300,000 ; and next [ year will be a very wonderful one if it passes ' without an advance. We do not complain of these advances. If the Minister could prove to the satisfaction of the public that he could ' spend five million a year profitably upon Ireland, he might have it and welcome. What we complain of is, that there is nothiug to show for it. At Kilrush and some other unions we are told of crowds flocking from a distance for relief, and being sent back fainting. Evictions have increased, while outdoor relief has been reduced considerably below the usual English proportion. Proprietors do not get their rents. Many of the clergy are starving on nominal livings. The Roman Catholic hierarchy still proclaim our inhumanity to the ends of the earth. Year by year a quarter of a million fly the accursed shore in a manner which redounds not less to their credit than to our disgrace. The indigenous population of Ireland, in one great family, is seeking a new allegiance and new laws. But this it does at its own motion and expense. Be it for good or for evil we at home have nothing to do with it. The population of some distressed unions has been reduced by half, but the distress continues. There are still thirty '" distressed unions." Ireland is made to pay the " rate in aid," and is actually paying it. Contractors, unpaid, ruined, and driven to desperation, are seizing upon furniture bought with our "advances," and putting it to sale. Altogether the illfame and nuisance of Ireland is scarcely abated. Then, what is there to show for our money ? At the present moment we are not going to assert that the great and difficult work of Irish relief might be done in a better, a more effectual, or more presentable manner ; nor will we say that for this great country £300,000 a-year is too much to stake for a prospect of good, .even with a still greater certainty of waste. Yet in how many ways might £300,000 be spent to advantage, and with immediate proof and show ! As we cannot entirely suppress our discontent, and as murmurs without reasons are ridiculous, we will venture to say that we think a rather more explicit case should have been made out for the resolutions of Friday night. The -House of Commons, in addition to very large grauts, has recently lent to the unions and ratepayers of Ireland four millions and a half, procured for that purpose by an addition to the national debt. It had a right to hesitate before it added to that sum, and threw the' repayment of the whole over forty years. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose place it was to make these explanations, is unfortunately ill ; Lord John Russell has too much on his bands, but some one ought to have been found to supply the House with the following particulars : — the distressed unions ; the state of their finances ; their rates collected and uncollected ; the circumstances under which numerous and extensive estates have for a long period paid no rates at all, and have thus greatly aggravated the burden on more solvent properties or more honest proprietors ; the grounds on which the law has not been put in force for the recovery of arrears, and the land itself sold for their payment ; the public grants to the above distressed unions ; the reason why the Poor Law Board of Dublin has not enforced out-door relief at Kilrush and elsewhere; why, notwithstanding the sufficiency of the law and the liberality of Parliament, some unions have been in such a state as to, give ground for' the assertion that the distress of the winter of 1849-50 is greater than that of 1846-47 ; and why, on the authority of the coroner's inquests, there have been in the past year near six hundred deaths from destitution. When it is alleged, as a proof of returning prosperity, that the number receiving out-door relief has sunk to little more than a hundred thousand; when it is observed* that there is a less proportion of paupers in Ireland than in England ; and when it is also boasted that rates in Ireland i have been more punctually and closely collected than iq England ; it certainly becomes a matter of great interest to know how Ireland, thus ostensibly our superior, nevertheless wants an immediate advance of £300,000 from the Imperial Exchequer, as it were, to keep her a-head of us. These queries, indeed, admit of replies more or less satisfactory ; but as the British Ooyernraeat is exposed tp great obloquy in

respect to Ireland, and is daily calumniated by writers who suppress what it has ' dene, I end parade what it is unable to prevent, the resolutions moved, and passed on Friday night afforded a good opportunity for meeting such slanders, and at the same time removing s disagreeable impression 'from the public mind. For our own part we feel no doubt whatever that Ireland ii beginning to improve. It it possible now to fathom that -deluge of calamity which has passed over the produce of her land and the soul of her people. Mr. Caird 'and other gentlemen, who have carefully explored the physical resource* and financial conditio* of Munster and Connaught, assure us , -that enterprising Englishmen may now settle, there with a security and advantage hitherto unknown. The "burdens on the land, though very serious, are tolerably ascertained, 'and fall, therefore. Wholly on the landlord.' ! If there were iany general expectation that -rates were on the increase, we should not be informed, as we are this day, that the first estate sold under the Encumbered Estates Act has brought twenty-seven years' purchase. As for the political and religious hickeriqgs which have kept Ireland in <perpetual hot water these hundreds of years, they .are certainly giving way to liberal, impartial, and conciliatory measures. This very day, we hope and trust, is one of good omen to Ireland. The Lord-Lieutenant -will be in his place 'ibis evening to defend 'against the champions of Orangeism the duty of even-handed justice between peer and peasant, Saxon and Celt, Protestant and Papist, and the policy of forgetting that they are once more at war. He will carry with him the best wishes of every true Englishman and every son of peace ; for they will see in his triumph a pledge of closer union between Great Britain and Ireland, and a death-blow to the factions which, on one pretence or another, have sought to divide them.