4th. The “Board of Improvement” to be enabled to cause cabins which may be nuisances to be taken down, and to require the landlords to contribute towards the expense of removing the occupants and providing for them.
5th. The “Board of Improvement” to establish an agricultural model school, with four or five acres of land attached, in so many parishes or districts as may be thought necessary, the master to undergo due examination, and to give instruction in letters and in agriculture.
6th. Tenants for life, with the approval of the “Board of Improvement,” to be empowered to grant leases for thirty-one years, and to charge the property with the amount expended in effecting permanent improvements.
7th. A fiscal board to be established in every county, with the powers to make presentments for public works now vested in grand juries, and to be required to present such sums as may be appointed by the Improvement Board.
8th. The Board of Works to be authorized to undertake any public works “such as roads, bridges, deepening rivers, or removing obstructions in them, and so forth,” that within certain limitations may be approved by the “Board of Improvement.”
A dissertation is then introduced on the effect of Irish immigrants on the labour-market of England, and ending with this quotation from Burke—“England and Ireland may flourish together. The world is large enough for us both. Let it be our care not to make ourselves too little for it.” The commissioners say it was their intention “to inquire relative to trade and manufactures, to the fisheries, and to mining; but that it has been found impossible to go into those matters through want of time.”
The foregoing summary of the commissioners’ recommendations can hardly be said to come within the province of poor-law legislation, but it has been thought right to insert them here, in order that the reader may see what were the commissioners’ views with regard to the state of Ireland, and especially with regard to its wants, which apparently consist in a want of capital, and a want of skill. The first is proposed to be furnished by government through the Board of Works, the last it is proposed to supply by constituting a “Board of Improvement.”