United States or Brazil ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Monsell, of Tervoe, addressed a letter to the Irish Chief Secretary, in which he reminds him that the Labour-rate Act was framed and passed into law at a time when the Government did not foresee that the potato rot would be making fearful ravages in every electoral division in Ireland by the first of September; that in a number of those there would not be a potato fit to eat on the first of October, and that, in all probability there would not remain in the country any considerable quantity of potatoes suitable for human food by November.
The Labour-rate Act passed without opposition: entitled, An Act to Facilitate the Employment of the Labouring Poor Its provisions Government Minute explaining them Heads of Minute Rate of wages Dissatisfaction with it Commissary-General Hewetson's letter Exorbitant prices Opinion expressed on this head by an American Captain The Government will not order food as Sir B. Peel did Partial and unjust taxation Opposition to the Labour-rate Act Reproductive employment called for Lord Devon's opinion Former works not to be completed under the Act Minute of 31st of August Modified by Mr.
The principle of the Labour-rate Act was doomed; no voice was raised in its defence, nor could there have been. The Government having turned a deaf ear to the call for an Autumn Session, the Repealers were anxious there should be a demonstration in Dublin that would, as far as possible, bear the similitude of an Irish Parliament.
The Labour-rate Act got rid of that evident hardship, and charged the landlord with half the rate for tenements or holdings over £4 a-year, and with the whole rate for holdings under that annual rent.
In a country so circumstanced, how disappointing, then, and heart-sickening must it not have been to good and thoughtful men, to find the Government passing a bill for the employment of our people on unproductive labour. Not only did the Labour-rate Act exclude productive labour from its own operations, but its direct tendency was to discourage and put a stop to improvement on the part of others.
Those works were commenced under the law passed by Sir Robert Peel's Government, whereby the baronies, or, in other words, the ratepayers, paid one-half the expense, and the Government the other; so that even if Lord John Russell's Government took them up anew, under the Labour-rate Act, the whole expense should, according to the terms of that Act, fall upon the baronies.
Under the Labour-rate Act, not so much as one rood of ground could be reclaimed or improved.
As the only object of this Labour-rate Act was to employ the people, and as it was supposed there were no public works of a reproductive nature which could be undertaken on a sufficient scale to ensure that employment, the Irish people were occupied, towards the end of the autumn of '46, mainly in making roads, which, as afterwards described by the first minister, 'were not wanted. In the month of September more than thirty thousand persons were thus employed; but when the harvest was over, and it was ascertained that its terrible deficiency had converted pauperism into famine, the numbers on the public works became greatly increased, so that at the end of November the amount of persons engaged was four hundred thousand, receiving wages at the rate of nearly five millions sterling per annum.
On that subject I do not see the difficulties which beset the propositions in the regard of the Poor-laws." Now it is the very reverse. He sees difficulties in reclaiming the waste lands of Ireland, but finds none in putting into operation the most objectionable part of the Poor-Law system outdoor relief; for, his Labour-rate Act was, substantially, a gigantic system of outdoor relief.
Indiscriminate taxation was, therefore, a positive injustice to the improving landlord, and an actual bar to improvement; for, of course, he would be rated higher on account of his improvements. Such, however, was taxation under the Labour-rate Act. Mr. Monsell concluded his able letter in the following words: "I am convinced that these evils cannot be avoided without a change in the law.
Word Of The Day