ple space afforded in the kingdom for the comfortable subsistence of every native, provided it is made available for that purpose) are irrelevant to the objects pointed out in your advertisement to form the subject of this treatise. But upon further examination, they will be found most intimately connected therewith. For from what cause is it, that the subdivision of farms is constantly going on? Is it not that the landlord sees no remedy for the evil, and that motives of humanity oblige him to submit, there being no other prospect for the family of his tenant, but beggary and starvation if he resists. But if the plan I have described was to be adopted, a provision is made thereby for every one able and willing to work, and the landlord would be no longer withheld by motives of humanity, from insisting upon that which his own interest would so strongly urge him to, and the rising generation would be brought up under the impression, that they must provide for themselves. It would then be no charity, to let them remain where they were to their own injury, but it would be a charity to force them to labour for a settlement for themselves, and to compel them to go where they would be better off, than staying at home. But the most likely thing is, that no kind of compulsion would be necessary. The prospect of obtaining a farm at a moderate rent in perpetuity being held out, would make them willing enough to depart, and perhaps it might be found, before long, that landlords would be forced to abate something of their demands, in order to persuade their tenants to stay, instead of being obliged to use harsh measures to force them to go. This is no impossible or improbable supposition. In America, where there is a facility of settling upon unreclaimed land, without being ex

*It may be matter of discussion, whether the control which a three life lease being given, instead of a perpetuity, would maintain over the settler, might not render it a desirable alteration to make. In either case, I have no fears whatever of getting any number of settlers that might be required.

posed to malice or to ill will, can it be supposed that any tenant would remain under a landlord, where he could not exist with a certain degree of comfort and satisfaction? It is quite evident that he would not, and the difficulty of getting labourers there, and the high wages given, sufficiently prove the fact, that having such an alternative enables the man who has only his health and his hands to bring to market, to make better terms for himself, and raises him in the scale of human society: and would not the same causes produce the same effects here? Undoubtedly they wouldno tenant would stay in a farm, if he could better himself by going away, and the results of the government's interference would be, that the farms, instead of being subdivided, would by degrees be enlarged, and the comforts and independence of the whole community would be gradually increased, by the operation of natural causes, without constraint or violence; and the eye of the philanthropist might look forward with delight to a period, when this unhappy country, for so many centuries distracted by religious and party feuds, might find peace and tranquillity in the possession of a peasantry, raised to a participation in the comforts of life, and having a personal interest in giving effect to those laws by which their properties were protected. Trusting that Ireland may yet be destined to realize so bright a prospect, and that her misguided inhabitants, directed as they now too generally are, and have too often been, to lawless and desperate courses, may yet be recalled to a sense of their moral and religious duties, and that their warm and generous feelings may yet be finally, and for ever, withdrawn from the control of those who so signally abuse their confidence,

ARMAGH, June, 1833.

I beg to subscribe myself,
Your faithful and obedient Servant,

To the Agricultural Committee of

the Royal Dublin Society.

WILLIAM BLACKER.

E

DISSUASIVE FROM SEPARATION:

A LETTER

TO SOME WAVERING FRIENDS AT WESTPORT.

BY

REV. J. D. SIRR, A. M. M. R. I. A.

RECTOR OF KILCOLEMAN, DIOCESE OF TUAM.

DUBLIN:

RICHARD M. TIMS, 85, GRAFTON STREET. ROBERT H. C. TIMS, 21, WIGMORE STREET, LONDON.

226. i. 169. (19)

THE WRITER of the following Letter has been urged to publish it without delay, as a separate tract, instead of waiting to annex it, as an appendix, to a Reply he is preparing to a pamphlet, entitled, "Reasons for Retiring from the Established Church," by the Rev. CHARLES HARGROVE.

Printed by Thomas L. White, 65, Fleet Street.