Dublin, Tuesday, August 5, 1851.

Of Irish stagnation, Irish unthrift, Irish destitution, Irish misery, the world has heard enough. I could not wholly avoid them without giving an essentially false and deceptive account of what must be painfully obvious to every traveler in Ireland; yet I have chosen to pass them over lightly and hurriedly, and shall not recur to them. They are in the main sufficiently well known to the civilized world, and, apart from suggestions of amendment, their contemplation can neither be pleasant nor profitable. I will only add here that though, in spite of Poor Laws and Union Poor-Houses, there are still much actual want, suffering and beggary in Ireland, yet the beggars here are by no means so numerous nor so importunate as in Italy, though the excuses for mendicity are far greater. What I propose now to bring under hasty review are the principal plans for the removal of Ireland's woes and the conversion of her myriads of paupers into independent and comfortable laborers. I shall speak of these in succession, beginning with the oldest and closing with the newest that has come under my observation. And first, then, of

REPEAL.

The hope of obtaining from the British Crown and Parliament the concession of a separate Legislature of their own seems nearly to have died out of the hearts of the Irish millions. The death of O'Connell deprived the measure of its mightiest advocate; Famine and other disasters followed; and fresher projects of amelioration have since to a great extent supplanted it in the popular mind. Yet it is to-day most palpable that such a Legislature is of the highest moment to the National well-being, and that its concession would work the greatest good to Ireland without injury to England. Nay; I see fresh reasons for my hope that such concession is far nearer than is generally imagined.

On all hands it is perceived and conceded that the amount of legislation required by the vast, widely scattered and diversely constituted portions of the British Empire is too great to be properly affected by any deliberative body. Parliament is just closing a long session, yet leaving very much of its proper business untouched for want of time, and that pertaining to Ireland is especially neglected. Then it has just passed a most unwise and irritating act with regard to the titles of the Catholic Prelates, which, because every act of Parliament must extend to Ireland unless that country is expressly excluded, is allowed to operate there, though the bad reasons given for its enactment at all have no application to that country, while the mischiefs it will do there are ten times greater than all it can effect in Great Britain. Had Ireland a separate Parliament, no British Minister would have been mad enough to propose the extension of this act over that country, where it is certain to excite disaffection and disloyalty, arouse slumbering hatreds, and impede the march of National and Social improvement. An Irish Parliament, with specified powers and duties akin to those of an American State Legislature, would be a great relief to a British Parliament and Ministry, a great support to Irish loyalty and Irish improvement, and no harm to anybody. These truths seem to me so palpable that I think they cannot long be disregarded, but that some one of the Political changes frequently occurring in Great Britain will secure to Ireland a restoration of her domestic Legislature. Neither Canada, Jamaica nor any other British colony can show half so good reasons for a domestic Legislature.

TENANT-RIGHT.

The agitation for Tenant-Right in Ireland is destined to fail—in fact, has virtually failed already. The Imperial Parliament will never concede that right, nor will any Legislature similarly constituted. And yet the demand has the clearest and strongest basis of natural and eternal justice, as any fair mind must confess. What is that demand? Simply that the creator of a new value shall be legally entitled to that value, or, in case he is required to surrender it to another, shall be paid a fair and just equivalent therefor. Here is a farm, for instance, whereof one man is recognised by law as the owner, and he lets it for three lives or a specific term of years to a tenant-cultivator for ten, fifteen or twenty shillings per acre. The tenant occupies it, cultivates it, pays the rent and improves it. At the close of his term, he is found to have built a good house on it instead of the old rookery he found there, while by fencing, draining, manuring and subsoiling he has doubled its productive capacity, and consequently its annual value. He wishes to cultivate it still, and offers to renew the lease for any number of years, and pay the rent punctually. "But no," says the landlord, "you must pay twice as much rent as hitherto." "Why so?" "Because the land is more valuable than it was when you took it." "Certainly it is; but that value is wholly the fruit of my labor—it has cost you nothing." "Can't help that, Sir; you improved for your own benefit, and with a full knowledge that the additional value would revert to me on the expiration of your lease; so pay my price or clear out!"—Is this right? The law says Yes; but Justice says No; Public Good says even more imperatively No. The laws of the land should encourage every occupier to improve the land he holds, to expend capital and employ labor upon it, so as to increase its value and productive capacity from year to year; but the law of the British Empire discourages improvement and impedes the employment of labor by taking the product from the producer and giving it arbitrarily to the landlord. Yet the landlord influence in Parliament is so predominant, so overwhelming, that no repeal, no mitigation even, of this great wrong is probable; and every demand for it is overborne by a senseless outcry against Agrarianism. Still, the agitation for Tenant-Right does good by imbuing the popular mind with some idea of the monster evil and wrong of the Monopoly of Land—an idea which will not always remain unfruitful.

EMIGRATION.

Emigration is now proceeding with gigantic strides, and is destined for some time to continue. I think a full third of the present population of Ireland are anxious to leave their native land, and will do so if they shall ever have the means before better prospects are opened to them. Packet-ships are constantly loading with emigrants at all the principal ports, while thousands are flocking monthly to Liverpool to find ready and cheap conveyance to America. But this emigration, however advisable for the departing, does little for those left behind, and is in the main detrimental to the country. The energetic, the daring, the high-spirited go, leaving the residue more abject and nerveless than ever. If Two Millions more were to leave the country next year, the condition of the remainder would not be essentially improved. Over population is not a leading cause of Ireland's present miseries.

Rudimental knowledge is being slowly diffused in Ireland, in spite of the serious impediments interposed by Religious jealousy and bigotry. But this remedy, as now applied, does not reach the seat of the disease. They are mainly the better class of poor children who are educated in the National and other elementary schools; the most depraved, benighted, degraded, are still below their reach. The destitute, hungry, unemployed, unclad, despairing, cannot or do not send their children to school; the wife and mother who must work daily in the turf-bog or potato-field for a few pence per day must keep her older child at home to mind the younger ones in her absence. Education, in its larger, truer meaning, is the great remedy for Ireland's woes; but until the parents have steadier employment and a juster recompense the general education of the children is impracticable.

ENCUMBERED ESTATES.

The act authorizing and requiring the sale of irredeemably Encumbered Estates in Ireland is one of the best which a British Parliament has passed in many years. Under its operation, a large portion of the soil is rapidly passing from the nominal ownership of bankrupts wholly unable and unqualified to improve it into those of new proprietors who, it may fairly be hoped, will generally be able to improve it, giving employment to more labor and increasing the annual product. The benefits of this change, however, can be but slowly realized, and are for the present hardly perceptible.

IRISH MANUFACTURES.

Within the past few months, a very decided interest has been awakened in the minds of enlightened and patriotic Irishmen in Dublin and other places, with regard to the importance and possibility of establishing various branches of Household Manufactures throughout the country. It is manifest that the general cheapness of Labor and Food, the facilities now enjoyed for communication, not only with Great Britain, but with all Europe and America also, and the extraordinary amount of unemployed and undeveloped capacity in Ireland, render the introduction of Manufactures at once eminently desirable and palpably feasible. Even though nothing could be immediately earned thereby, the simple diffusion of industrial skill and efficiency which must ensue from such introduction would be an inestimable gain to the peasantry of Ireland. But allow that all the idle poor of this island could in six months be taught how to earn six pence each per day, the aggregate benefit to the Irish and to mankind would be greater than that of all the gold mines yet discovered. The Poorhouse Unions could be nearly emptied in a year, and this whole population comfortably fed, clad and housed within the next three years. A beginning must be made with the simplest or household manufactures, for want of means to establish the more complex, costly and efficient branches, which require extensive Machinery and aggregation of Laborers; but if the first step be successfully taken, others are certain to follow. With abundant water-power and inexhaustible beds of fuel yet untouched, it is demonstrable that Manufactures of Cotton and Woolen, as well as Linen, might be prosecuted in Ireland even cheaper than in England, though the average recompense of Labor should thereby be doubled.

The first impulse to the Manufacture movement appears to have been given by Mr. Thomas Mooney, a gentleman well known to his countrymen throughout the United States, whence he returned some eighteen months ago. Primarily at his suggestion, a "Parent Board of Irish Manufacture" was organized in Dublin several months since, funds collected by voluntary subscription, an office opened, and a central school established, with a view to the qualification of teachers for the superintendence of auxiliary schools throughout the country. The enterprise was proceeding vigorously and with daily increasing momentum when Dissension, the evil genius of Ireland, broke out among its leading supporters, which has resulted in the division of the original Society into two, one of them sustaining Mr. Mooney and the other claiming to have taken the movement entirely out of his hands. Thus the case stands at present, but thus I trust it will not long remain. The enterprise is one of the most feasible and hopeful of the many that have been undertaken for the benefit of Ireland, and affords ample scope and occupation for all who may see fit to labor for its success. I trust that all differences will speedily be harmonized, and that the friends of the movement, once more united, may urge it forward to a most complete and beneficent triumph.

PEAT MANUFACTURE.

The Peat Bogs of Ireland cover some Three Millions of Acres of its surface, mainly in the heart of the country, though extending into every part of it. Perhaps One Hundred Thousand Acres, chiefly in the north-east, have been brought into cultivation; of the residue, some yields a little sour pasturage, but the greater portion is of no use whatever, save as it supplies a very poor but cheap fuel to the peasantry. These bogs are of all depths from a few inches to thirty or forty feet, though the very shallow have generally been reclaimed. This is effected in some cases by removing the Peat or Turf altogether; but sometimes, where it is quite deep, by ditching and draining it, and then cutting and heaping up some six to twelve inches at the top, so that it can be thoroughly burned, and the ashes spread over the entire surface for a soil. This is not so deep as could be desired, but the climate is so uniformly moist and the skies so rarely unclouded that it suffices to insure very tolerable crops thereafter.

I do not know how the origin of these Bogs is accounted for by the learned, but I presume the land they cover was originally a dense forest, and that the Peat commenced growing as a sort of moss or fungus, carpeting the ground and preventing the germination of any more trees. In the course of ten or fifteen centuries, the forest trees (mainly of Oak or Fir) decayed and fell into the Peat, which, dying at the top, continued to grow at the bottom, while the perpetual moisture of the climate prevented its destruction by fire. Thus the forest gradually disappeared, and the Peat alone remained, gaining a foot in depth in the course of two or three centuries until it slowly reached its present condition.

Many efforts have been made to render this Peat available as a basis of Manufacture and Commerce, but hitherto with little success. The magnificent chemical discoveries heralded some two years ago, whereby each bog was to be transformed into a mimic California, have not endured the rough test of practical experience. There is no doubt that Peat contains all the valuable elements therein set forth—Carbon, Ammonia, Stearine, Tar, &c., but unfortunately it has hitherto cost more to extract them than they will sell for in market; so the high-raised expectations of 1849 have been temporarily blasted, like a great many predecessors.

But further chemical investigations have resulted in new discoveries, which, it is confidently asserted, render the future success of the Peat Charcoal manufacture a matter of demonstrable certainty. A company has just been organized in London, under commanding auspices, which proposes to embark £500,000 directly and £1,000,000 ultimately in Peat-Works, having secured the exclusive right of using the newly patented processes of Messrs. J. S. Gwynne and J. J. Hays, which are pronounced exceedingly important and valuable. By a combination of these patented processes, it is calculated that the company will be able to manufacture from the inexhaustible Bogs of Ireland, 1. Peat Coal, or solidified Peat, of intense calorific power, exceedingly cheap, almost as dense as Bituminous Coal, while absolutely free from Gases injurious to metals as well as from "clinker," and therefore especially valuable for Locomotives and for innumerable applications in the arts; 2. Peat Charcoal, thoroughly carbonized, of compact and heavy substance, free from sulphur, and for which there is an unlimited demand not only for fuel but for fertilization; 3. Peat Tar, of extraordinary value simply as Tar, an admirable preservative of Timber, and readily convertible into Illuminating Gas of exceeding brilliancy and power; 4. Acetate of Lime; and 5. a crude Sulphate of Ammonia, well known as a fertilizer of abundant energy. The company is already at work, and expect soon to have six working stations in different parts of the country, professing its ability to manufacture for 14s. per tun, Peat Charcoal readily selling in London for 45s., while they expect to realize 5s. worth of Tar, Ammonia, &c., with every tun of Charcoal, while on Solidified Peat they anticipate still larger profits. These may be very greatly reduced by practical experience without affecting the vital point, that sagacious and scrutinizing capitalists have been found willing to invest their money in an enterprise which, if it succeeds at all, must secure illimitable employment to Labor in Ireland and strongly tend to increase its average reward.

BEET SUGAR.

A similar Company, with a like capital, has also been formed to prosecute extensively in Ireland the manufacture of Beet Sugar, and this can hardly be deemed an experiment. That the Sugar Beet grows luxuriously here I can personally bear witness; indeed, I doubt whether there is a soil or climate better adapted to it in the world. That the Beet grown in Ireland yields a very large proportion of Sugar is attested by able chemists; that the manufacture of Beet Sugar is profitable, its firm establishment and rapid extension in France, Belgium, &c., abundantly prove. The Irish Company have secured the exclusive use of two recently patented inventions, whereby they claim to be able to produce a third more sugar than has hitherto been obtained, and of a quality absolutely undistinguishable from the best Cane Sugar. They say they can make it at a profit of fully twenty-five per cent. after paying an excise of £10 per tun to the Government, working their mills all the year (drying their roots for use in months when they cannot otherwise be fit for manufacture). Mr. Wm. K. Sullivan, Chemist to the Museum of Irish Industry, states that the Beet Sugar manufactured in France has increased from 51,000 tuns in 1840 to more than 100,000 tuns in 1850, in defiance of a large increase in the excise levied thereon—that the average production of Sugar Beet is in Ireland 15 tuns per acre, against less than 11 tuns in France and Germany—that each acre of Beets will yield 4½ tuns (green) of tops or leaves, worth 7s. 6d. per tun for feeding cattle, making the clear profit on the cultivation of the Beet, at 15s. per tun, over £5 per acre—that there is no shadow of difference between the Sugar of the Beet and that of the Cane, all the difference popularly supposed to exist being caused by the existence of foreign substances in one or both—that Irish roots generally, and Beet roots especially, contain considerably more Sugar than those grown on the Continent—and that Beet Sugar may be made in Ireland (without reference to the newly patented processes from which the Company expect such great advantages) at a very handsome profit. As the soil and climate of Ireland are at least equal to, and the Labor decidedly cheaper than, that employed in the same pursuit on the Continent, while Ireland herself, wretched as she is, consumes over two thousand tuns of Sugar per annum, and Great Britain, some twenty-five thousand tuns—every pound of it imported—I can perceive no reasonable basis for a doubt that the Beet Culture and Sugar Manufacture will speedily be naturalized in Ireland, and that they will give employment and better wages at all seasons to many thousands of her sons.

Such are some of the grounds of my hope that the deepest wretchedness of this unhappy country has been endured—that her depopulation will speedily be arrested, and that better days are in store for her long-suffering people. Yet Conquest, Subjugation, Oppression and Misgovernment have worn deep furrows in the National character, and ages of patient, enlightened and unselfish effort will be necessary to eradicate them. Ignorance, Indolence, Inefficiency, Superstition and Hatred are still fearfully prevalent; I only hope that causes are beginning to operate which will ultimately efface them. If I have said less than would seem just of the Political causes, of Ireland's calamities, it is because I would rather draw attention to practical though slow remedies than invoke fruitless indignation against the wrongs which have rendered them necessary. Peace and Concord are the great primary needs of Ireland—Peace between her warring Churches—Concord between her rulers and landlords on one side and her destitute and desperate Millions on the other. I wish the latter had sufficient courage and self-trust to demand and enforce emancipation from the Political and Social vassalage in which they are held; to demand not merely Tenant-Right but a restitution of the broad lands wrested from their ancestors by fire and sword—not merely equal rights with Englishmen in Church and State, but equal right also to judge whether the existing Union of the two islands is advantageous to themselves, and if not, to insist that it be made so or cease altogether. But Ireland has suffered too long and too deeply for this; her emancipation is now possible only through the education and social elevation of her People. This is a slow process, but earnest hearts and united minds will render it a sure one. If the Irish but will and work for it, the close of this century will find them a Nation of Ten Millions, with their Industry as diversified, their Labor, as efficient, its Recompense as liberal, and their general condition as thrifty and comfortable as those of any other Nation. Thus circumstanced, they could no longer be treated as the appendage of an Empire, the heritage of a Crown, the conquest of a selfish and domineering Race, but must be accounted equals with the inhabitants of the Sister Isle in Civil and Religious Rights or break the connection without internal discord and almost without a struggle. There shall yet be an Ireland to which her sons in distant lands may turn their eyes with a pride unmingled with sadness; but alas! who can say how soon!