The people were
starving, and be the law good or bad they must be employed under it, as
it was the only way the poor could, for the time, be relieved. He
reviews the provisions of the Labour-rate Act, and like so many other
enlightened men of the period--whose opinions he may be fairly taken to
represent, he is alarmed at the principle of unproductive labour upon
which it was based. The money necessary for the support of the people
must, for the most part, be raised from the land, and as this vast sum,
so raised, does not "revolve back again upon the land," it would be
impossible, he thought, for the nation to recover from such a shock. It
was universally acknowledged that the want of sufficient capital was one
of the great evils--if not _the_ great evil of Ireland. There was
abundant scope for the profitable expenditure of capital, "in every
corner of Ireland--in every barony--almost in every townland; the money
expended upon its improvement would return a large interest of at least
ten per cent., [the usual estimate made by practised men was higher, but
he, being anxious to avoid exaggeration, leaves it at ten], and the
capital of the country would, of course, be largely increased by such
expenditure .
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