Undoubtedly it is a great hardship that the English parish should have the burden of Irish poor, but on the other hand in many cases the payers of poor's rates in these parishes have derived advantage from Irish labour.

The first thing to be amended was the mode of election to the corporation, which was now to be intrusted to all such rate-payers in each borough as had paid poor-rates for three years, and resided within seven miles of the place."

There is a mass of legislation every year directed to the assessing and collecting of taxes, tending more and more to become inquisitorial, requiring the tax payer under oath to furnish full schedules of his property, with provision for an arbitrary assessment if he fails to do so.