or the objects in view are concerned, we cordially approve of the scheme, though we cannot say that we entertain the same sanguine view of it as the author before us. It deserves a trial, in conjunction with other measures of relief, when the temper of that misguided people shall admit of the application, with any probability of success, of this class of remedial

measures.

dred thousand persons, which, at the rate of five persons to a family-a rather low rate for Ireland-answers to a population of fifteen hundred thousand. Suppose such a number drafted off to a state of

independence and comfort, together with tion, and the introduction of English any moderate additional relief of emigracapital and farming over the remaining surface of Ireland would cease to be chimerical.

66 6

The improvement of waste,' Mr Thornton observes, may perhaps be thought to require a good deal of capital; but capital is principally useful for its command of labour, and the Irish peasantry have quite labour enough at their own disposal. Their misfortune is that

"It is enough, if there be land available on which to locate so great a portion of the population, that the remaining area of the country shall not be required to maintain greater numbers than are compatible with large farming and hired labour. For this purpose there is an obvious resource in the waste lands, which are happily so extensive, and a large portion of them so improveable, as to afford a means by which, without making the present tenants proprietors, nearly the whole surplus population might be converted into peasant proprietors elsewhere. This plan has been strongly pressed upon the public by several writers; but the first to bring it prominently forward in England, was Mr William Thornton.*

"The detailed estimate of an irrefragable authority, Mr Griffith, annexed to the Report of Lord Devon's Commission, shows nearly a million and a half of acres reclaimable for the spade or plough, some of them with the promise of great fertility, and about two millions and a half more reclaimable for pasture; the greater part being in most convenient proximity to the principal masses of destitute population. Besides these four millions of acres, there are above two millions and a half, pronounced by Mr Griffith to be unimprovable; but he is only speaking of reclamation for profit: it is doubtful if there be any land, in a temperate climate, which cannot be reclaimed and rendered productive by labourers themselves under the inducement of a permanent property. Confining ourselves to the one and a half millions of arable first mentioned, it would furnish properties averaging five acres each to three hun

not be worse applied because they worked for themselves instead of for a paymaster. So far is large capital from being indispensable for the cultivation of barren tracts, that schemes of this kind, which could only bring loss to a real speculator, are successfully achieved by his penniless rival. A capitalist must have a certain return for the money he lays out, but the poor man expends nothing but his own superabundant labour, which would be valueless if not so employed; so that his returns, however small, are all clear profit. No man in his senses would ever have thought of wasting money upon the original sand of the Pays de Waes; but the hard-working boors who settled there two hundred years ago, without any other stock than their industry, contrived to enrich both themselves and the land, and indeed to make the latter the richest in Europe.'

"The profit of reclaiming waste land,' says the Digest of Evidence to Lord Devon's Commission, will be best understood from a practice not uncommon in Ireland, to which farmers sometimes resort. This consists in giving the use of a small portion of it to a poor cottier or herdsman for the first three crops, after which this improved portion is given up to the farmer, and a fresh piece of the waste land is taken on the same terms by the cottier.' Well may the compiler say,' Here we have the example of the very poorest class in Ireland obtaining a livelihood by the cultivation of waste land under the most discouraging and the least remunerative circumstances that can well be imagined.'

"It is quite worthy of the spirit which pervades the wretched attempts as yet made to do good to Ireland, that this

spectacle of the poorest of mankind making the land valuable by their labour for the profit of other people who have done nothing to assist them, does not at once strike Lord Devon and his Commission as a thing which ought not to be. Mr Thornton strongly urges the claims of common justice and common sense.

"The colonists ought to be allowed to retain permanent possession of the spots reclaimed by them. To employ them as labourers in bringing the land into a remunerative condition, (see Report of Land Occupation Commissioners,) in order that it may then be let to some one else, while they are sent to shift for themselves where they can, may be an excellent mode of enriching the landlord, but must eventually aggravate the sufferings of the poor. It is probably because this plan has been generally practised, that the reclamation of waste land has hitherto done nothing for the benefit of the Irish peasantry. If the latter are to derive any advantage from it, such of them as may be located on the waste should receive perpetual leases of their respective allotments-should be made freeholders in fact, or at least perpetual tenants at a quit-rent. Such an appropriation of waste land would, of course, require that compensation should be made to all who previously possessed any interest in it. But the value of a legal interest in land which cannot be enclosed or cultivated without

permission of the legislature, can only be proportionate to the actual yearly produce; and as land in a natural state yields little or nothing, all legal claims upon it might be bought up at a trifling expense, or might be commuted for a very small annual payment to be made by the settlers. Of the perfect competence of parliament to direct some arrangement of this kind there can be no question. An authority which compels individuals to part with their most valued property on the slightest pretext of public convenience, and permits railway projectors to throw down family mansions and cut up favourite pleasure-grounds, need not be very scrupulous about forcing the sale of boggy meadows or mountain pastures, in order to obtain the means of curing the destitution and misery of an entire people.'

"It would be desirable," continues Mr Mill," and in most cases necessary, that the tracts of land should be prepared for the labours of the peasant by being

drained and intersected with roads, at the expense of government; the interest of the sums so expended, and of compensation paid for the existing rights to the waste land, being charged on it, when reclaimed, as a perpetual quit-rent, re

The

deemable at a moderate number of years' purchase. The state would thus incur no loss, while the advances made would give that immediate employment to the surplus labour of Ireland, which, if not given in this manner, will assuredly have to be given in some other, not only less useful, but far less likely to repay its cost. millions lavished, during the famine, in the almost nominal execution of useless works, without any result but that of keeping the people alive, would, if employed in a great operation in the waste lands, have been quite as effectual for relieving immediate distress, and would have laid the foundation, broad and deep, for something really deserving the name of social improvement. But, as usual, it was thought better to throw away money and exertion in a beaten track, than to take the responsibility of the most advantageous investment of them in an untrodden one."-(Vol. i. p. 392.)

We make no apology for the length of the above extract; the subject is of great importance; but having stated the proposal in the words of its principal author (if Mr Thornton can claim the distinction) and its most distinguished advocate, we have nothing left but to express our own wish that some such wide and general plan will at all events meet with a fair trial, making the experiment. when the fitting time shall occur for

Any of our readers into whose hands the work of Mr Mill has already fallen, will be aware of the numerous topics on which it must excite controversy or provoke discussion. Some of these topics we had marked out for examination; but we have no space to enter upon a new subject, and shall content ourselves with closing our notice with an extract or two from what is the closing chapter of the work itself—On the Limits of the Province of Government. His observations upon this subject are so temperate and judicious, and conceived throughout in so liberal and enlightened a spirit, that although there must always be a shade of difference between such a writer and ourselves, we should have little hesitation in

adopting almost the whole of the chapter. He draws a very necessary distinction between the authoritative interference of government, controlling and interdicting, and that kind of intervention where a government, "leaving individuals free to use their own

means of pursuing any object of general interest, but not trusting the object solely to their care, establishes, side by side with their arrangements, an agency of its own for a like purpose. Thus it is one thing to maintain a church establishment, and another to refuse toleration to other religions, or to persons professing no religion. It is one thing to provide schools or colleges, and another to require that no person shall act as an instructor of youth without a government license."

We like the tone of the following remark: "Whatever theory we adopt respecting the foundation of the social union, and under whatever political institutions we live, there is a circle around every individual human being which no government, be it that of one, of a few, or of the many, ought to be permitted to overstep; there is a part of the life of every person, who has come to years of discretion, within which the individuality of that person ought to reign uncontrolled, either by any other individual or the public collectively. That there is, or ought to be, some space of human existence thus entrenched round, and sacred from authoritative intrusion, no one who professes the smallest regard to human freedom or dignity will call in question."

"Many,” he continues, “in latter times have been prone to think that limitation of the powers of government is only essential when the government itself is badly constituted; when it does not represent the people, but is the organ of a class, or a coalition of classes; and that a government of a sufficiently popular constitution might be trusted with any amount of power over the nation, since its power would be only that of the nation over itself. This might be true, if the nation, in such cases, did not practically mean a mere majority of the nation, and if minorities only were capable of oppressing, but not of being oppressed. Experience, however, proves that the depositaries of power, who are mere delegates of the people-that is, of a majority-are quite as ready (when they think they can count upon popular support) as any organs of oligarchy to assume arbitrary power, and encroach unduly on the liberty of private life. The public collectively is abundantly ready to impose, not only its generally narrow views of its interests,

animals."

It is not the error which Conservative politicians are liable to commit, to throw too large a share of the management of affairs into the hands of a central power; they would, therefore, readily coincide with Mr Mill, when he observes, that even if a government could comprehend within itself the most eminent intellectual capacity and active talent of the nation, it would not be the less desirable that the conduct of a large portion of the affairs of society should be left in the hands of the persons imme"The diately interested in them. business of life," he remarks, "is an essential part of the practical education of a people; without which, book and school instruction, though most necessary and salutary, does not suffice to qualify them for conduct, and for the adaptation of means to ends.

A people among whom there is no habit of spontaneous action for a collective interest - who look habitually to their government to command or prompt them in all matters of joint concern-who expect to have every thing done for them, except what can be made an affair of mere habit and routine-have their faculties only half developed; their education is defective in one of its most important branches."

We must conclude with the following extract, which is so extremely applicable to the affairs of our neighbours, that we wish we could make it heard from the tribune of their National Assembly.

"A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic institutions in detail, but confined to the central government, not only is not political freedom, but often creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the lowest

grade in society the desire and ambition of political domination. In some countries, the desire of the people is for not being tyrannised over, but in others, it is merely for an equal chance to every body of tyrannising. Unhappily, this last state of the desires is fully as natural to mankind as the former, and in many of the conditions even of civilised humanity, is far more largely exemplified. In proportion as the people are accustomed to manage their affairs by their own active intervention, instead of leaving them to the government, their desires will turn to the repelling tyranny, rather than to tyrannising; while, in proportion as all real initiative and direction resides in the government, and individuals perpetually feel and act as under its perpetual tutelage, popular institutions develop in them not the desire of freedom, but an unmeasured appetite for place and power; diverting the intelligence and activity of the country from its principal business to a wretched competition for the selfish prizes and the petty vanities of office."(Vol. ii. p. 515.)

In quitting this work, we must again repeat that our task would be endless if we entered upon every topic on which it provokes discussion.

On some of these we may take a future opportunity to express ourselves. Amongst the subjects we had designed, had space permitted, for some discussion, are certain heresies, as we think them, regarding property in land; and some views, rather hinted at than explained, on the position which the female sex ought to take in society. In the extract we first made, the reader may have remarked this singular expression. Speaking of the Americans, he says they have "apparently got rid of all social injustices and inequalities that affect persons of Caucasian race and of the male sex;" leaving it to be inferred, that even in America there still remain certain social injustices and inequalities affecting the female sex. There are many inuendos scattered throughout the book of the same description, but we nowhere gather a distinct view of the sort of reformation that is called for. In a writer of another character these expressions would be encountered only with ridicule; coming from Mr Mill, they excite our surprise, and, in some measure, our curiosity.

away

THE Mission of San Fernando is situated on a small river called Las Animas, a branch of the Los Martires. The convent is built at the neck of a large plain, at the point of influx of the stream from the broken spurs of the sierra. The savana is covered with luxuriant grass, kept down, however, by the countless herds of cattle which pasture on it. The banks of the creek are covered with a lofty growth of oak and poplar, which near the Mission have been considerably thinned for the purpose of affording fuel and building material for the increasing settlement. The convent stands in the midst of a grove of fruit-trees, its rude tower and cross peeping above them, and contrasting picturesquely with the wildness of the surrounding scenery. Gardens and orchards lie immediately in front of the building, and a vineyard stretches to the upland ridge of the valley. The huts of the Indians are scattered here and there, built of stone and adobe, sometimes thatched with flags and boughs, but comfortable enough. The convent itself is a substantial building, of the style of architecture characterising monastic edifices in most parts of the world. Loopholes peer from its plastered walls, and on a flat portion of the roof a comically mounted gingall or wall-piece, carrying a two-pound ball, threatens the assailant in time of war. At one end of the oblong building, a rough irregular arch of sun-burned bricks is surmounted by a rude cross, under which hangs a small but deep-toned bell-the wonder of the Indian peones, and highly venerated by the frayles themselves, who received it as a present from a certain venerable archbishop of Old Spain, and who, whilst guarding it with reverential awe, tell wondrous tales of its adventures on the road to its present abiding place.

Of late years the number of the canonical inmates of the convent has been much reduced-there being but

four priests now to do the duties of the eleven who formerly inhabited it: Fray Augustin, a Capuchin of due capacity of paunch, being at the head of the holy quartette. Augustin is the conventual name of the reverend father, who fails not to impress upon such casual visitants to that ultima Thule as he deems likely to appreciate the information, that, but for his humility, he might add the sonorous appellations of Ignacio SabanalMorales-y Fuentes-his family being of the best blood of Old Castile, and known there since the days of Ruy Gomez-el Campeador-possessing, moreover, half the "vega" of the Ebro, &c., where, had fate been propitious, he would now have been the sleek superior of a rich capuchin convent, instead of vegetating, a leatherclad frayle, in the wilds of California Alta.

Nevertheless, his lot is no bad one. With plenty of the best and fattest meat to eat, whether of beef or venison, of bear or mountain mutton; with good wine and brandy of home make, and plenty of it; fruit of all climes in great abundance; wheaten or corn bread to suit his palate; a tractable flock of natives to guide, and assisted in the task by three brother shepherds; far from the strife of politics or party-secure from hostile attack, (not quite, by-the-by,) and eating, drinking, and sleeping away his time, one would think that Fray Augustin Ignacio Sabanal-Morales-y Fuentes had little to trouble him, and had no cause to regret even the vega of Castilian Ebro, held by his family since the days of el Campeador.

One evening Fray Augustin sat upon an adobe bench, under the figtree shadowing the porch of the Mission. He was dressed in a goat-skin jerkin, softly and beautifully dressed, and descending to his hips, under which his only covering-tell it not in Gath!-was a long linen shirt, reaching to his knees, and lately procured from Puebla de los Angeles,