Page:Considerations on the state of Ireland.pdf/9

 questions relating to Ireland the public opinion of the empire has decisively approved.

But, it may be asked, why should this question be peculiarly Irish? Must not the economic conditions, already adverted to, affect the other portions of the United Kingdom? Undoubtedly, I reply, they are coming into operation there as well as here. The influx of the English agricultural labourers into the large towns, is a phenomenon quite similar to the Irish migration to England and Scotland. There is, besides, a large emigration going on from the rural districts of Great Britain. The rapid introduction of agricultural machinery is an index of the rise of wages, and the consequent growing necessity of economising labour. On the other hand, as we have seen, the force of foreign competition is beginning to be felt—foreign products are flowing steadily into the markets, and prices are effectually prevented from following the rise of wages. The action of these causes has been hitherto in a great degree obscured by the abundance of other resources which are wanting in Ireland, by the great mineral wealth of the country, and by the continual demand for land for the purposes of manufacturing enterprise. But various indications lead us to believe that before long the economic crisis common, though in different degrees, to the two countries, will bring up the land question there, as well as here, with irresistible urgency.

The local customs favouring agriculture, and the good understanding between landlord and tenant, which sufficed heretofore, are not considered to afford a sufficient security under the new circumstances of production. In the esteemed treatise on Modern Agricultural Improvements, published as an appendix to the "British Husbandry" of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, you will find forcible expression of the growing opinion of English farmers, that a more positive and better defined security is necessary for their success. The same feeling is strongly exhibited in letters which have quite recently appeared in the Times. Within the last few days, a Practical Farmer, writing in that journal, says: "The question of a tenant's security for the outlay of his capital on his landlord's property, is second in importance to none; landlord and tenant are alike interested in its settlement on just terms; and on it hinges all future improvement of the soil of England. * * * The greatest portion of England always will be farmed by tenants; to farm badly at present prices is ruinous; to farm well, which the spirit of the times demands, is to run a risk. It is running a risk to trust to any man's honour not to turn you out, because the owner of the land may die, and another Pharoah may reign who knew not Joseph. To run a risk is not only foolish; but, where a man is risking the money on which his family are dependent, it is wrong." When words like these begin to appear in the English journals, it is plain enough that propositions like those already brought forward by Mr. Pusey, will make their appearance again, and will not be disposed of so easily as before. The land question ought to be settled in Ireland first, because it is more pressing in a country almost entirely agricultural; but, in any case, it cannot be long post-