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a year, an annual absentee drain of about £5,000,000 more, and, in fine, the existence of a state of things, that every day more and more "cries to heaven for vengeance," by "defrauding the labourer of his hire," or diverting, from a native to a foreign expenditure and employment, a greater sum than has ever been derived by any one civilized country from the impoverishment and misery of another. For these evils there may be many palliatives, though there can be but one radical remedy, a REPEAL of the UNION, which, unless Irishmen are both morally and physically inferior to the rest of the human species, I think it is pretty clear, from the foregoing historical facts, that we can attain, if we only will to do so. And, should the restoration of such an equally just and natural connexion between the two islands be too long deferred, the necessarily intolerable increase amongst us of so many serious evils, with a proportionably increasing population, is calculated to put a reflecting disposition in mind of the curious, and perhaps prophetic, observations of the poet Spencer, in the reign of Elizabeth. "There have bin," says he, "divers good plottes devised, and wise councels cast already about reformation of that realme, but they say, it is the fatall destiny of that land, that no purposes whatsoever which are meant for her good, will prosper or take good effect, which, whether it proceed from the very genius of the soyle, or influence of the starres, or that Almighty God hath not yet appointed the time of her

reformation, or that he reserveth her in this unquiet state still for some SECRET SCOURGE, which shall by her come unto ENGLAND, it is hard to be knowne, but yet MUCH to be FEARED !"'378

378 View of the State of Ireland, p. 1.

IS THE SCOTCH UNION AN ARGUMENT FOR

THE IRISH UNION.?

Disce omnes.

Crimine ab uno,

Virgil.

John Bull fleeces Sawny, and Paddy, his brother,
By two Unions-for one's just as bad as the other.
Free Translation.

The unforeseen length to which the observations on Irish military history have run, and the circumstance of the other compositions alluded to in page 106 having been before in print, oblige the author, contrary to his original intention, to limit his APPENDIX to the subjoined compendium of the able article on Repeal in Tait's Magazine for December, 1838, adverted to and promised in note 7, page 152. Coming, as the article does, from such a good judge of the wants of his own country as Tait-proving, as it does, in connexion with the unanswerable financial fact in the last-mentioned note and page of this volume, that Scotland wOULD be better off with a domestic legislature than without one-and thus completely refuting the superficial assertions of those, who attempt to argue, from the supposed benefits of a Union to Scotland, that such a measure should also be beneficial to Ireland—the importance of the production entitles it to a degree of attention far above that generally afforded to the effusions of mere periodical literature. Having remarked, in a previous portion of his honest and spirited periodical, upon the little attention given to Scotch affairs in the London legislature, (for such only it should be considered and entitled,) Tait writes

thus:

"Repeal of the Union.-Necessity of Local Legislation.— The preceeding notice of the legislation affecting Scotland at a most important period, shews how little of the time of Parliament is dedicated to our peculiar concerns. Out of a huge folio, there are not more than 5 acts, not exceeding 20 pages in all, in which the name of old Scotland is to be found, or its existence recognized.... In the statute-book of Scotland, the old Scotch acts-in 3 small octo-decimo volumes of 500 or 600 pages each we find from 40 to 50 of printed, or, as they would now be called, public acts, besides local and personal, passed in a session which lasted a month or 6 weeks only. And, if we look to these acts, we shall find that they are, at least, as important, in every point of view to Scotchmen, as the modern legislation of the three kingdoms. To take for example the first year that turns up to us-1696—when the kingdom was in a state of quiet...... we find that the Scotch Parliament met at Edinburgh on the 8th September, and adjourned on the 12th of October, during which 46 acts were passed1...... What is not the least remarkable part of the matter is, that the whole 46 acts are contained in 48 small octodecimo pages. Nearly the whole of those relating to the law are, to this day, in force, ......the experience of a century and a half having been able to add little or nothing to the efficacy of the provisions...... And all of them have not given as much trouble in their interpretation to onr courts of law, short as they are, as the Judicature Act, the Cessio Act, or any act relative to the law which has been passed within the last quarter of a century. No one, we imagine, will be so absurd as to pretend, that the affairs of Scotland can be as efficiently managed by a legislative body sitting hundreds of miles from her territory and having the interests of an empire dispersed over the whole face of the earth, and containing more than 100,000,000 of human beings, to attend to, as by a Parliament meeting in Edinburgh. The Imperial Parliament is, in truth, unfitted for that department of legislation, called local and personal. Such legislation is best conducted on the spot, or as near as possible to the spot, which is to be affected. Witnesses are then at hand, information can be got with expedition and with little expense; the members of a local parliament can be dismissed and called together with little inconvenience. The expence at present necessarily incurred for a Road, a Harbour, or a Railway Bill for

1 The detail of several of those acts, though of the highest legal consequence to Scotland, and of other useful measures on matters of commerce, finance, &c.specified by Tait as having been passed in this native "parliament of four weeks' duration' is left out, as uninteresting to a general reader.

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