he 'aboriginal
idleness' of the Highlanders rapidly disappears.

"The principle that an effective legal provision against all kinds
of destitution is useful to a country, as a wholesome stimulus
both to capitalists and labourers, is clearly stated by Sir Robert
Peel, _and now recognised and acted on in reference to Ireland_.

"The evidence of the resources of Ireland, in the absence of that
stimulus, having been very imperfectly developed,--from the Report
of the Committee on the occupation of lands, and other
sources,--is just similar to that in the Highlands.

"And the effect of an incipient Poor-Rate in forcing on profitable
improvements, as well as in equalising the burden imposed on the
higher ranks by the destitution of the lower, begins to show
itself in Ireland unequivocally.

"There are probably some districts both in the Highlands and in
Ireland, where 'profitable investments of labour' cannot be found,
which can only be effectually relieved by emigration and
colonisation.

"To which purpose, in the case of the Highlands, the surplus funds
in the hands of the Relief Committee, and even an additional
subscription, may be very properly applied, provided that the
districts requiring it are pointed out by their own agents, and
that the wholesome stimulus of an effective Poor Law, embracing
the case of destitution from want of employment, _now existing in
all other parts of her Majesty's dominions_, be extended to
Scotland."

We make no apology for the copiousness of the extracts which we are
now to make, and which, we think, will sufficiently explain themselves
without much commentary from us.

Nothing can be fairer than the footing on which Dr Alison places his
argument at the outset.

"Very little reflection appears to be sufficient to show, that the
best system of management of the poor (_ceteris paribus_) must be
that which gives the least encouragement to redundancy of
population. I have always regarded, therefore, the doctrine of
Malthus--by which all such questions are held to be inseparably
connected with the theory of population--to be the true basis of
all speculative inquiry on this subject; and I cannot help saying
again, that in consequence of some hasty expressions which he
used, and of the great practical error, which, as I believe, and
as he himself