Poor Laws-Ireland; Three Reports to Her Maj. Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1838 edition. Excerpt: ...Its direct tendency, therefore, is to depress the character of the people; for, by narrowing the field of labour, and binding individuals to a particular locality, not perhaps favourable to the development, or to the most profitable employment, of their faculties--improvement is checked--independence is destroyed, and the working classes are left, without resource or elasticity of spirit, in helpless dependence upon their place of settlement in every contingency. If, therefore, settlement should be unnecessary, for imparting a requisite degree of local interest--if the Bill as now proposed, by requiring the rate to be levied upon.the Union, for relief of the actually destitute within the Union, is suflicient, as I believe it to be, for securing attention to the business of the Union, there can be no necessity to establish a Law of Settlement for that purpose; and nothing short of absolute necessity could justify the introduction of a principle, of which the direct tendency is to depress the condition and character of the people. 40. It is to be remarked, too, that the arguments by which a settlement is defended, would not be satisfied by a Union Settlement. In order to give its full effect to individual interest, each property, each estate, must be rated separately, and separately support its own poor. This would be a perfect Settlement; but a Union Settlement would be imperfect, as the Union would necessarily comprise a great number of such estates. The interest which it would impart would be too general to operate with any decided effect in the several portions of which the Union would be composed. There would be a general or Union interest in the Report. PROTECTION or LOCAL mTcREsTs. 85 repression of pauperism, but the individual...