were clearing their lands of great numbers of labouring peasants,'' and penal laws were enacted against the population on account of their religion, which had the most pernicious effect. The famous Arthur Young visited Ireland in 1778, and describes the condition of the common people as that of the utmost material and moral wretchedness. They were treated as slaves by their landlords, to whom they cringed with the meanest servility, William Pitt thus described the legislative policy of England towards Ireland previous to 1782:

The system has been that of debarring Ireland from the enjoyment and use of her resources, to make that kingdom completely subservient to the interest and opulence of this country (England) without suffering hot to share in the bounties of nature and the industry of her citizens, or making them to contribute to the This general interests and strength of the empire. system of cruel and abominable restraint has been exploded The penal laws against Roman Catholics were shortly afterwards relaxed, but the vacillations of policy produced great sufferings amongst the people. As my Pugland, the common people were everywhere drepresent the proprietors, who for the most part ་ ་ཐ བད ་བ བས ད could have little sympathy with their miserable tenants, drew out of them what rack-rents they could; and the people, shut out from the absence of equitable conditions of leaseholding, saw no door open by which they could improve their circumstances. The Act of Union created also indieetly great mischief, for absenteeism became common in consequence of the great landowners preferring to pside in London rather than upon their estates.

The resources which the population of England pos

* Gordon's History of Ireland,

How Hestory of Landholding in Ireland, by Joseph Fisher, F.R.H.S.,

sessed in the extension of industrial occupations were cut off almost altogether from that of Ireland; for, in the first place, the soil of Ireland was not productive of those minerals which that of England possessed in such abundance; and, in the second place, the jealousy of the English perpetually insisted upon an embargo being laid on the exportation of Irish goods, and up till the end of last century the exportation of woollen goods-the most important of native manufactures-was altogether prohibited. From these causes, therefore, as well as from the constant intestine divisions of the country, Ireland could not thrive; and the great mass of her population depending upon agriculture alone, and being dissociated from those rewards which spring from an earnest and successful cultivation of the soil, progressed from one kind of misery that of perpetual conflict, to another kind-that of over-population and its consequent chronic and occasional acute starvation. There has scarcely ever occurred in the lifetime of a nation such a wretched transition as this. Professor Fawcett describes the condition thus:-The economic condition of no other country has ever been so unsatisfactory as was the condition of Ireland under the cottier tenancy; for the cottiers, having taken the land at a rent which it was impossible for them to pay, had no motive whatever to be industrious; if by skill and labour the land was rendered more productive, the increased produce was absorbed in the rent of the landlord. The rents were, in fact, fixed so high that whether the seasons were favourable or not, whether the land was well or badly cultivated, the cottier tenants could never expect to obtain for themselves any more than a bare subsistence; hence it has been aptly remarked that the Irish cottiers were the only people in the world whose condition was so deplorable that they gained nothing by being indus

trious. No scheme could possibly be devised which would act more effectually to impoverish the people, and throw the land into the most wretched state of cultivation. The progress of Ireland cannot be marked by a surer sign than by the gradual abolition of the cottier tenure.'1

Every influence appeared to be disastrous; but the two special influences of habitual early and productive marriages, which the general imprudence of the population, as well as its diminution by war, produce, and the severing of the connection between labour and profit by the universality of tenancy-at-will and rack-renting, were those which constantly tended, and unfortunately still do tend, to plunge the inhabitants deeper and deeper into material wretchedness. Mr. Joseph Fisher describes the later period of Irish history in its true colours, when he says: The boasted civilization of the nineteenth century and the mild rule of the last of the Hanoverian sovereigns have not done much to alleviate the condition of Ireland, or to place the ownership of the soil upon a sounder basis. Social changes have been effected. The poor, who heretofore wandered about and were supported by alms, have been immured in workhouses, and been supported by compulsory taxation. Vast numbers perished from famine, and still greater multitudes have been forced to seek in another country the employment or tenance which was denied them in their own

On examining into the present condition of things, we find that the same tree is still unfortunately bearing the same poisonous fruit as heretofore. Thus the cost of maintaining the poor in Ireland has about doubled

Kivival Eonomy, by Henry Fawcett, 4th edition, 1874,

* Bury of Lundholding in Ireland. 1877, p. 115.

between 1859 and 1874, and this while the country has been rapidly depopulated, and the progress of the world generally has been unprecedented. Between the years 1851 and 1875, 2,406,277 of the population have emigrated. Of the four provinces Ulster and Leinster have parted with a number each more than one-third of their present populations, while Connaught has parted with onesixth, and Munster with about two-thirds, and these without reckoning the numbers which have come over to Britain. For the last two years, however, the average numbers of persons emigrating, owing apparently to the depressed condition of trade and the want of employment in America, has very much decreased.

Again, it is a striking fact that the natural increase of the population of Ireland, as marked by the ratio of births to deaths (if, indeed, the registers are to be relied upon), is the greatest in the purely agricultural districts, and the least in the towns. In Munster and Connaught the total proportions of Roman Catholic marriages are respectively 91 and 95 per cent. of the whole; and of those marrying there is a greater proportion of persons not of full age than in the other two provinces, the percentages being respectively 7.8 and 9 per cent. of such. There can be little doubt that the priests, whose reputation for virtue stands very high, foster early marriages and virtuous living without regard to economic considerations; for we find that in the western district of Ireland the percentage of illegitimate children born to the whole number births is only 0.8 per cent, while it is 23 per cent. for the whole country, and 46 per cent. for the northeastern Protestant division of it. But, on the other hand, of those who marry nearly one-half (46 per cent. in 1874) did not and, we may very well suppose, could not sign their names at marriage-a condition of illiteracy which, indeed, cannot but be highly prejudicial to the

material advancement of the people, to whatever sphere they make betake themselves. Again, in Connaught. there are only 4 persons to one acre of potatoes; whereas in Scotland the proportion is 21 persons, and in England 70 persons, to one acre of potatoes; in France it is 13 persons, and in Prussia 6 persons to one acre. In Prussia, however, it must be noted that the root is used to a large extent industrially-in the manufacture of brandy, for instance, which is for the most part exported, the refuse being utilised as cattle-feeding stuff. We may therefore safely say that, as regards the dependence upon this highly fluctuating crop, the Irish at the present day-for the proportion of persons to an acre throughout the country does not differ materially from that stated for its western province-are in a position just as dangerous as that which they occupied before the famine, and that the situation is one very materially lower than that of any other civilized people. The average daily wage of a labourer in Connaught, as reported by the inspector of the unions which lie in portions of that province in 1870, was stated to have doubled since 1849; but it was still only from tenpence to a shilling, rising somewhat above that meagre pittance in the hurried times of spring and autumn, and from the increase in the prices of all kinds of provisions the money Jute of five shillings per week in the latter period represents no very material advance on the starvation wages of the period immediately succeeding the famine.

When we come to examine into the causes for such an exceptionally impoverished condition as that which exhibits itself generally throughout Ireland, there can be no doubt that amongst and at the head of these must stand the fact that, although the people are almost entirely dependent upon the successful cultivation of the land, almost all inducement to such is taken away when nearly five-sixths