district workhouses, where the able work-people should have employment provided for them also, at minimum wages, in the manufacturing of coarse but necessary clothing, blankets, sheets, shirts, stockings, woollen coarse cloth, and, in short, all such necessary things, for the use of the poor. The next great object, I should propose, would be the mutual exchange of the produce of city workhouses, for the agricultural produce of the country farms, so that either establishment should not have to purchase any thing but the raw materials, which they could not raise; and for that purpose, I should have no doubt, the surplus of their productions would amply provide, after having paid a fair arent for the land; they should be free from taxes of all kinds, direct and indirect, as far as it possible could be achieved. The expense of the management of these establishments would thus be much lessened by the combination of several parishes. The affairs to be directed under the management and inspection of the general Board of Commissioners, either for the whole country, or, at least, for four counties combined; under these to be formed Acting Committees, consisting of six or eight persons, from each parish, to be elected every year; the money affairs to be in the hands of the Commissioners; each district committee to report to them, every half year, the amount of levy required in their judgment, of which the Commissioners, are to satisfy themselves, before making an order for the levy which is to be paid into their hands, through whom all money transactions are to pass. The same commissioners to act for the cities, where the district system would be particularly advantageous, by equalising the tax or rates, which, under preAsent circumstances, are very peculiarly unequal; thus, those parts of towns where the rich reside, have less poor in their parishes, and, of course, the rich are less taxed than in those parishes where the poor are most numerous; there the householders, themselves, are poorer and less able to pay heavy poor-rates. Yet, under the present parish system, poor rates are heaviest in the poorest parishes. I am, myself, satisfied that some such arrangements as are here spoken of, would be productive of a vast deal of improvement in the dreadful situation the poor of Ireland are doomed to suffer under, at present, and that after the first expense of such establishments they would require very little money to support and work them. That some measure is necessary, and indispensable, cannot admit, of a doubt; in truth, something for the poor in Ireland must be immediately done. Every year, the landlords are getting less rents, and scarcely a summer passes without their being obliged (any of them that have common humanity) to put their hands into their pockets, and give fifty or a hundred pounds, in charity to the poor, on their estates. Your feelings, on this subject, my Lord, are favourable to some measure of the kind I know-I, therefore, hope you will take up the matter with your usual zeal and ability, in the cause of suffering humanity, early in the ensuing parliament; and I feel assured, you will be aided by the English and Scotch members; if from no other motive than self defence; for, I believe, they are now pretty well aware that one great bonus the poor Irish have, or induce ment to come to these countries in preference to going elsewhere, is the hope they entertain of being able to make a settlement in some of the English and Scotch parishes. How enormously, from time to time they have succeeded, a reference to the Irish names on the parish books, will soon satisfy those members. I shall say no more on this subject, having, I trust and hope, left it in your Lordship's special keeping. LETTER X. MY LORD, ANOTHER important measure required is, a regulated plan of education for all classes of the people. With regard to the present state of education generally, I must refer to the reports of the commissioners of education, for details. The early plans of primate Boulton and Stone, for proselytising the Irish people, through the medium of Charter Shools, is at last, acknowledged to have completely failed; which was long since known to the Protestants themselves; but as large revenues were attached to them, they were kept to reward the lower tools of the Orange faction. Indeed, the enormous abuses of their funds was a proof how little attention had been paid to the education of the people hitherto. However, the Marquis of Wellesly instituted inquiry into this glaring abuse of public money; and many of the charter schools have been done away with. Numerous instances were adduced of establishments containing six, ten, or a dozen children, costing as many hundred pounds a year. That the miserable weakness of some; of the Commissioners should have interfered with the fur therance of the grand object which they were engaged in, is to be deeply lamented, and that sectarian intolerance should have interfered to prevent a just appreciation of the value of the Belfast institution, is seriously to be regretted. To say that it is an establishment for education of the greatest practical utility in Ireland, is saying too little; it is decidedly the most so of any institution with double its limited funds, in the empire, and is highly valuable to the large prosbyterian population of the North of Ireland, thinking as I do, that education is one of those great measures calling for the paternal aid of government. The Belfast institution should be endowed by the government, and raised into a UNIVERSITY. The great necessity there is of forming two additional universities in Ireland immediately, is most apparent, when we consider the number of her population, and the exclusive system of education pursued in Trinity College, Dublin, which was so fully avowed by the late Provost on his suppressing the Historical Society, belonging to that college; it was respectfully represented to him, the vast value and importance that society was of to young men intended for the profession of the law, and those gentlemen who wished to acquire a liberal education, that the discussions held there had elicited the talents of the finest orators Ireland ever produced, of Grattan, Curran, Food, Lord Clare, &c. The patriotic and enlightened answer of the provost was, "That he was master of the college, and was the best judge of its uses; that it was founded and intended for the education of protestant clergymen, and that no other object should be attended to by him ;" and he, of course, persisted in his liberal resolve; most obstinately refusing to open the society again. The means of education in the South of Ireland, for the higher branches is extremely deficient. It is true, by one of those curious freaks of men in office, the government grant was taken from the Belfast Institution, leaving the Cork Institution a grant of over two thousand pounds a year; and certainly, never was such a sum less usefully expended, or so little practical utility gained by the people; no schools for the higher branches of education; no plan of legal, mechanical, or religious education formed; twelve lectures on agriculture; twentyfour on natural philosophy and astronomy, and the same number on botany and chemistry; a botanic garden, the greater part of which is occupied as a nursery of plants, forest trees, and cabbages, which are sold for the benefit of the principal gardener, and a small subscription library, constitute the principal sources of knowledge in the Cork Institution. The want of a regular university in the South, is proved by the many hundreds of students, who at a vast expense, leave it, to seek education in England, Scotland, Dublin, and the continent of Europe every year. I do therefore suggest the establishment of a university in Limerick, as a more central point than Cork, inasmuch as the latter being on the sea coast, can only be the centre of a circle, including half sea, and half land, and of course cannot include so large a population, whereas Limerick would form the centre of a large range of country, and so afford advantages to a greater number of people. I am led to the suggestion of establishing colleges in Ireland particularly, by again turning to Scotland, where, before her population had arrived at two millions, she had three universities; and to those fountains of knowledge I attribute, in a great measure, the improvements which are diffused all over that country: while Ireland, with six or seven millions of people, has but one. She cannot progress rapidly in the career of improvement, while a general diffusion of a more enlightened and useful system of education, is not within reach of the mid |