One person in every three of the population never had any other alimentary experience than the difference between hunger and starvation.

In these circumstances a Royal Commission was appointed to consider the advisability of extending the English Poor Law to Ireland.
Their report is a pioneer document in the development of economic thought.

Just as the Railway Commission a few years later was to give the watchword of the future, nationalisation, so the Poor Law Commission gave within its province the watchword of the future, prevention before relief.

They pointed the contrast between the two countries.

I quote the words of the later Irish Poor Law Commission of 1903-6: "Having regard to the destitution and poverty that were prevalent in Ireland owing to want of employment, the Royal Commissioners in their Report of 1836 came to the conclusion that the English workhouse system would be unsuitable for Ireland, because after unchecked demoralisation by profuse out-door relief _in England, the Work-house system was devised in order to make the lazy and idle seek ordinary employment which could be got.