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would be to have separate places of burial. It was true that in former days the property of the church in Ireland was divided into four parts, and that with three of those parts the bishop built and repaired the churches, supplied a provision for the clergymen, and gave aid to the poor; but he rather thought that the quarta pars episcopalis of those days was, at least, as great as the entire property of the church at the present moment. Although he thought every church was the only interpreter of its own words, yet it did not appear to him necessarily to follow that the individual divines of the Roman Catholic Church were the best expositors of the doctrines of their own church; because he thought those divines had deprived them. selves of the liberty of exposition; inasmuch as they had subjected themselves, and not only so, but the church had subjected itself, to an esta

him, that in uttering that opinion he indulged | Tithe Bill was going on very well in the diocese in a peculiar latitude of expression to make a of Dublin. Previously to the passing of that show of liberality, he solemnly and unequivocally bill, the tithe system was productive of great reiterated the sentiment; and added, that hav-dissatisfaction in Ireland; much of which, howing read his former evidence to other Roman ever, had been excited by speeches in ParliaCatholics, clergy as well as laity, he had never ment. Considerable dissatisfaction had been found one that expressed the least dissent produced in Ireland by the past state of the from it. law with regard to burials as between Catholic RANDLE PATRICK MACDONNELL, Esq. and Protestant; and he thought the best remedy Resided at Lancaster Park, near Ballinasloe. Had had daily opportunities of observing the system of taking distress, and the conduct of drivers, and conceived that the latter was contrary to law in most instances. The tolls collected at fairs were also grievous and illegal. In Ballinasloe a board was set up enumerating the various articles which were to pay toll, with an &c. at the end of them, thus, "for every "bag of oats, barley, wheat, meal, &c. so "much;" and complaint being made to the magistrates that toll had been exacted on an article not named on the board, viz. potatoes, they determined that that article was comprehended in the &c. On many other articles, all of which were supposed to be comprehended in the &c., toll was taken. At the town of Westport there were various tolls and dues which were considered illegal. He detailed a number of extraordinary circumstances con-blished system of exposition which no individual nected with the administration of justice by the magistrates in the petty courts at Ballinasloe. A subscription was raising for the purpose of prosecuting one of them, a Dr. Trench, for his conduct. He shewed the copy of a warrant, by two magistrates, for levying by distress the sum of 24d. on the goods and chattels of an individual for tithes. The fees on such a warrant would exceed a shilling. Complaint was also very general of the whole system of grand jury presentments; more especially with reference to roads and bridges; and any appeal to the law to correct the abuse, would inevitably bring down the hostility of powerful persons on the appellant.

had a right to alter. The Church of England left the matter, within a certain limit, to the judgment of the individual. In one sense of the word, he admitted that the Roman Catholic Church of the present day was very different from the Roman Catholic Church of the middle ages; in the general prevailing opinions amongst individuals there might be a consider. able difference;-but the principle, that the opinions of individuals were not to affect the meaning of the church, still remained; and if a solemn demand were made for a formal declaration, or recognition of the great leading opinions of the Roman Catholic Church respecting its doctrines, he should not be quite sure that the His Grace the ARCHBISHOP of DUBLIN. ancient received opinions of that church, which During his experience he had little doubt that might seem for a time to have been abandoned the real proportion of Roman Catholics to practically, might not then be, and ought not Protestants in Ireland had been increasing; then to be, given as the rule of that church, although the ostensible number of Protestants and revived in all its force. In the education had increased. He thought that the number of of the people he was averse to a plan which Protestants in Dublin might be about 90,000. should comprehend both Catholics and ProThere had for some time been a sort of general testants, as that must inevitably tend to an indefinite alarm entertained by Protestants, interference with religious faith. The recent upon the subject of insurrection on the part of introduction of political considerations had the Roman Catholics. Several Catholic clergy-much strengthened the line of distinction bemen had recently offered to read their recanta- tween Protestants and Catholics. He admitted tion; but circumstances had induced him to suspect that they were either not sincere or not sane. He had never been a member of the Bible Society; and disapproved, not of their object, but of their conduct, as tending to secta. rianism. He admitted that the existing Roman Catholic chapels appeared to be insufficient for the members of that cominunion. The new

that any considerable body of people, who suffered any political exclusion, would naturally feel dissatisfied with the law; that if that exclusion arose on the ground of religion, it would be likely to raise still more acrimonious feelings ; that the dissatisfaction would be more felt in proportion as the class of the community to which the exclusion applied advanced in wealth

and power; that the Roman Catholics of Ireland | against the Catholics; nor did he think that if had advanced very much in those respects; those laws were all repealed, and the Catholics that in proportion as persons became educated put on an equal footing with the Protestants, and enlightened, and felt their capacity for civil there would be immediately a cessation of all and political privilege increase, their dissatis- dissensions, and an immediate amelioration in faction at exclusion from civil and political the condition of the people. The Roman Caprivilege would increase also; that the progress tholics had become more discontented since they of education in Ireland had been considerable; had had an increase of privileges. From history that as long as the religious distinctions, and the it appeared abundantly that the Roman Cathoasperity of party which they produced, continued lic religion was a religion seeking supremacy; in Ireland, he did not anticipate any improve- and he did not think that a man could be a good ment in that country; that the agitation which Catholic, in the strict sense of the word, unless existed among the Roman Catholic part of the he availed himself of every means in his power community in Ireland had been, in a great to establish the supremacy of the Catholic relidegree, produced by the speeches and acts of gion. Nothing that he could see had occurred, those who were their leaders in Dublin; that within the last two or three centuries, to lessen those leaders were of a class of persons who felt, that feeling on the part of the Roman Catholics. practically, the civil disabilities to which they He conceived that it would be dangerous to were subject on account of their religion; that admit into all the privileges of the Protestant it was likely that as long as they continued constitution persons who were in such comsubject to those civil disabilities their dissatis-plete subservience to the authority of a foreign faction would continue; and that their means power as was described in those decrees of general of agitating and disquieting the great mass of councils which regarded the excommunication the Catholic people would certainly continue as of heretics and the deprivation of heretical long; but he maintained, that if the persons sovereigns of their kingdoms, which decrees, he who were influential in the Catholic body were believed, had never been annulled by subsequent sincerely desirous of prosecuting only the fair decrees. He did not think that the line of disobjects of that body, and in a fair constitutional tinction between spiritual and temporal alleway, there would be but little dissension; that giance, in the Catholic Church, was sufficiently that was not the case; that there had been an marked. He was not of opinion that the esta eagerness of exertion connected with objects (as blishment of the college of Maynooth had been he believed) beyond those which were professed beneficial; and, on the whole, he thought it to be sought; that that had produced a sort of would be safer to have a foreign education for character, and the exertions of a sort of cha- the Roman Catholic clergy, than the education racter, on behalf of the Roman Catholics, not to as it was now conducted at Maynooth. be justified by the real wants of that body; that the conduct pursued had been that which fairly subjected the leading persons to the description of demagogues,—of persons who were inflaming the people in order that they might, by modes not perfectly justifiable or allowed by the constitution, obtain an object in which they had themselves a peculiar interest; that they had not declined drawing their religion itself into an association by which it ought never to be influenced, confounding all distinctions, and making the religious part of their community altogether political; that the Protestant mind ought to be satisfied that the objections to the religious tenets of the Roman Catholics should be shewn not to be well founded, if in reality they were not so; and that the way to effect that was not by the violent conduct of the Roman Catholic leaders, but that the whole should be a progress of mind. His own opinion was, that the object which the Roman Catholics bad in view was the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland, as the religion of the country, upon the ruins of the Protestant Church; and that the Protestant Church was at that moment in great danger from the Roman Catholics. He could not allow that the misfortunes of Ireland were entirely attributable to the present state of the disqualifying laws

JOHN RAMSAY M'CULLOCH, Esq.- Had devoted much time to the study of political economy. Taking the population of Ireland in 1791 at 3,747,000, and its population in 1821 at 6,801,000, it appeared that the population of that country doubled in about thirty-three years. In several of the states of America it was proved that, after making every reasonable deduction for emigrants, the population had doubled in twenty-five years, or less; but in England and Wales it took eighty years, and in Scotland a hundred and twenty years, to double the population. The main cause of the great increase of population in Ireland was the small quantity and the cheap quality of the food on which the people consented to live; and the extreme facility of obtaining small portions of land enabled them to raise that food with little difficulty. The habit of early marriages, and the healthiness of the climate, undoubtedly contributed to increase the number of the people. He had no doubt that the population of Ireland was still increasing at the same rate; and if no check were interposed to the practice of splitting farms into small portions, he did not know where population was to stop, until all the land was parcelled out into mere potato gardens. From all that he had read and heard, he believed that the condition of the Irish peasantry

was.

was worse than that of any other peasantry in ❘ be advantageously employed in Ireland, it would Europe; and that it was hardly possible for go thither without any legislative measures to human beings to live, and be in a worse state than force it; if not, it had better remain where it they were. He thought that the immediate cause It would be wise in the legislature, how. of this state of things was the excessive number ever, to give every facility (not every encɔu. of people in the country, compared with the ragement) to the tendency of capital to go to quantity of capital to employ them. Supposing Ireland, by removing all obstacles in the way of the present average rate of wages was four- its natural transfer. Want of security was one pence a day, if it were deemed desirable to raise of the most powerful of those obstacles. Every that rate to twelve-pence a day, then, taking thing that could be done to increase the security the existing population of Ireland at 7,500,000, of property in Ireland must be in the last degree of which there might be about 2,000,000 above advantageous. The unsettled state of a great sixteen years of age, including 500,000 females political question must undoubtedly detract from fit for labour, it would require an additional the security of property in Ireland. Any mea capital of about 20,000,0007, for that purpose. sures that could be adopted to slacken the ratio It was quite impossible that the condition of the of the progress of population would also be adpeople could be improved until the ratio of ca- vantageous;-such as abolishing the practice of pital to population were increased. The efforts sub-letting, taking away all artificial or political of individuals, or even of companies, could effect inducements to the landlords to multiply their but little benefit. He was not aware that the tenants and subdivide their farms; and the return and the residence of the absentee land- establishment of schools, in which the children lords of Ireland would be productive of any of the poor should be taught what were the ciradvantage to the lower orders of the people in cumstances on which their condition in life must the way of increasing the average rate of wages ever depend. A system of emigration, carried all over the country. The income of a landlord, on by Government, and coming in aid of those when he was an absentee, was just as much ex- measures, would operate beneficially. But emipended in Ireland as if he were living in it. gration would be useful only when combined When a landlord became an absentee, his rent with such other measures as might have an must be remitted to him either in money or in effect to prevent the vacuum that it would cause commodities. As it could not continue to be in the population from being filled up. The remitted to him in money, there being not suf- introduction of poor laws into Ireland would be ficient money to make such continued remit- productive of immediate advantage, but of ultance, it was clear that it must be remitted intimate ruin to the people of that country; as it commodities. This, he thought, would be the nature of the operation: when a landlord, having an estate in Ireland, went to live in London or Paris, his agent got his rent, and went and bought a bill of exchange with it; now that bill of exchange was a draft drawn against equivalent commodities that were to be exported from Ireland; it was nothing more than an order to receive an equivalent amount in commodities which must be sent from Ireland. The merchants who got 10,000l. or any other sum from the agent of an absentee landlord, went into the Irish market and bought exactly the same amount of commodities as the landlord would have bought had he been at home; the only difference being, that the landlord would eat them and wear them in London or Paris, and not in Dublin or in his house in Ireland. Precisely, therefore, in proportion to the amount of rent remitted would be the corresponding export of Irish commodities. If the remittances to absentee landlords amounted to three millions a year, were they to return home the foreign trade of Ireland would be dimi. nished to that amount. Nor did he think, from all the information he had been able to obtain, that in a moral point of view Ireland lost much by the want of the absentee landlords. Almost all great improvements in every country had originated among merchants and manufacturers, of Ireland. rather than among landlords. If capital could

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would at the same time destroy the capital and increase the population. He had very serious apprehensions of the injurious operation, upon the state of British labourers, of the competition of the great number of Irish labourers who came over to England and Scotland to look for employment, and settle themselves. He did not believe that any such serious mischief ever was inflicted on the west of Scotland as had been done to it by the Irish labourers that had come over within the last ten or fifteen years. If the population of Ireland went on increasing, Great Britain would be the natural outlet for the surplus. He did not conceive that bounties on the linen manufacture of Ireland would have any beneficial effect. To lay the foundation of any effectual change in the condition of the people of Ireland, Government should attempt to remove the obstacles that prevented the na tural transfer of English capital to that country, and take away all the artificial incitements to the increase of population which now existed in it.

Major WARBURTON. - Resided principally at Ballinasloe. Defended the conduct of the police, and of the other authorities in that neighbourhood; and expressed his conviction that the existence of the Catholic association had been attended with great danger to the peace.

SCOTLAND.

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46

CALEDONIAN CANAL.

Substance of the Twenty-second Report of the
Commissioners appointed for carrying into
execution the purposes of an Act, passed in
the 43rd Year of the Reign of his late Majesty
King George the Third, intituled, " An Act
“for granting to his Majesty the Sum of
"Twenty Thousand Pounds, towards de-
fraying the Expense of making an Inland
“Navigation from the Eastern to the West-
ern Sea, by Inverness and Fort William,
“and for taking the necessary steps towards
executing the same;"—and also, for the
purposes of an Act, passed in the 44th Year
of his said late Majesty, intituled, "An Act
' for making further Provision for making
"and maintaining an Inland Navigation,
46 commonly called The Caledonian Canal,
66 'from the Eastern to the Western Sea, by
“Inverness and Fort William, in Scotland."

66

the shallows are so far diminished in extent, that the labour of the next three months will produce a clear passage throughout the canal and lakes, no where less than fifteen feet deep.

The passages of vessels from sea to sea have been 476 in number, shewing an increase as ten to six upon the amount of the preceding twelvemonth; of these, 218 have been from the west to the east, 258 from east to west, and 517 vessels have entered the canal without passing through it. Steam-boat passages (to the amount of 149) are not included in these numbers; but in future they will form part of the account, as the indulgence hitherto shewn towards them in the non-payment of tonnage rates will henceforth be discontinued. The tonnage rates on other vessels, at one farthing per mile per ton, with five shillings on every steam-boat passage, have produced £2,160 from 1st May, 1824, to 1st May, 1825; and directions will be given to the Collectors to charge one halfpenny per ton per mile, from and after the end of June, 1825; not only because the rates are unreasonably low, as compared with the accommodation afforded, but also with regard to the interest of the Forth and Clyde Canal Company, who might reasonably complain of injustice, if a very low tonnage rate continued to be charged on a rival mode of conveyance, created and maintained, not at the expense of individuals, but of the public.

THE attainment of the full depth of the Caledonian Canal is an operation which it is in vain to attempt to expedite, without incurring the expense of additional dredging machines; an expense which would be incompatible with prudence, inasmuch as canals in general do not come into full use till the course of trade has accommodated itself to the new channel prepared for it: and this kind of delay is the more to be anticipated in a canal of an unusual kind, and unexampled in its dimensions. Ship-masters are prudently unwilling to rely on a passage unexplored by vessels not quite so large as their own; and this sort of caution has really prevented disappointment in the case of the Caledonian Canal, the navigable depth of which, from sea to sea, is not very much increased since the date of the Commissioners' last report. At four places in the summit level, it is not yet fifteen feet deep, and the same deficiency exists across the Dunainchroy Moor, near Inverness, as also in the short space connecting the foot of The expenditure of the last twelvemonth has Loch Lochie with the regulating loch near not varied perceptibly from the amount stated Mucomer. in their last report, as the expenditure of the The unusual hardness of the clay at Bona preceding twelvemonth, considering, that, for (foot of Loch-Ness), and the necessity of em- the reasons therein specified, that payment ploying a dredging machine at Dunainchroy, arose from fourteen pay days; thirteen only have produced unexpected delay; but all ob- (the usual number) are now included; and the stacles have been nearly overcome by slow de- expenditure in fifty-two weeks has been nearly grees, and the Commissioners are assured, that | £22,000.

The Commissioners proceed to describe in detail the present state of the works along the whole line of the canal. They further state, that the number of persons employed in the canal operations has been on an average 287; an increase of 122 upon the number stated in their last report: the lining of the canal near Fort-Augustus, and afterwards in the Clachnacharry district, and the rock-cutting at Mucomer, having required many labourers, of whom a larger proportion than usual were of necessity employed in day-work.

CUSTOMS.

The Eleventh Report, to the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of his Majesty's Treasury, of the Commissioners appointed by the Acts of the 1st and 2d Geo. 4th, c. 90, and 3d Geo. 4th, c. 37; for inquiring into the Collection and Management of the Public Revenue arising in Ireland, and into certain Departments of the Public Revenue arising in

Great Britain.

THE former inquiries of this commission in Scotland having been in a great measure confined, in the Excise Department, to the operation of the distillery laws, and in the customs, to the subordinate establishments and conduct of the business at the out-ports, it became necessary to assemble again in Scotland, as well for the purpose of concluding our inquiries with regard to the customs and excise, as to examine into the several offices of stamps, assessed taxes, and post-office, in that part of the United Kingdom.

in addition to the testimony in favour of the consolidation arising from the absence of all

complaint of inconvenience or delay, after notice had been given to the commercial bodies in the district, of our readiness to receive any representations on the subject, we had the satisfaction of obtaining some positive evidence as to the advantages of the change, in the examination of the Lord Provost of Glasgow; Mr. Robert Findlay, a member of the chamber of commerce, and lately chairman of that body; Mr. Ewing, also a member of the chamber of commerce, and at present chairman of the West India Association of Glasgow; and Mr. M'Call, a general merchant; evidence to which we can with confidence refer your Lordships, as conclusive on this point.

2dly. With regard to the changes which have taken place in the regulations affecting the trade between Ireland and Scotland, we examined the collectors and comptrollers of the customs at Greenock and Glasgow, and several of the mer. chants whom we had reason to suppose most conversant with that branch of commerce, as well as the several gentlemen to whose evidence we have already alluded; and in addition to their testimony, we received much valuable information from Mr. Peter Hutchinson, who is extensively concerned as a merchant and manu.

Upon these several objects the commission was occupied in Glasgow and Edinburgh from the beginning of the month of September till nearly the close of the year. In the present Report, it is our intention to bring before your Lordships the result of our further examinations into the department of the customs. The ex-facturer, and who appears to have been amongst cise department will form the subject of a separate report; and our observations on the stamps, taxes, and post-office, will be incorporated in the general reports on those branches of the revenue, when these offices in England shall have been fully investigated.

As the most considerable proportion of the trading and manufacturing interests of Scotland are concentrated in Glasgow and its neighbourhood, it appeared to us a matter of importance to ascertain the effect that has been produced on those interests by the several alterations recently made, in conformity with the suggestions in our former reports, with respect to the laws and general system under which the duties of customs are collected: We determined, therefore, to assemble in the first instance in that city; a determination that was confirmed by a memorial addressed to us on the part of the magistrates and merchants resident in the neighbourhood, requesting a conference on several material points connected with their commercial interests.

The alterations in the laws and practice of the customs to which we particularly allude,

are,

1st. The consolidation of the revenue boards, and consequent assimilation of the practice throughout the United Kingdom.

2dly. The abolition of the union duties, and the regulations by which the trade between Scotland and Ireland has been placed on the footing of the coasting trade.

the foremost to avail himself of the repeal of the union duties, and the removal of the revenue restrictions, to commence an intercourse between Scotland and Ireland in regard to the manufac ture of cotton goods, which promises to be alike beneficial to both countries.

Mr. M'Murdo, the collector, brought before us the striking increase which has taken place within the last three years, in the quantities of cotton goods imported from and exported to Ire land, at the port of Glasgow alone; the detail is as follows, viz.

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A reference to the evidence of this officer, and to the accounts annexed to it, will shew a corresponding increase in other important articles, and it appears obvious, that this interchange is, as Mr. Findlay justly observes, at present only 1st. With regard to the first of these measures, in its infancy. This gentleman further states:—

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