Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/193

Rh has been the growth of centuries, by a vast expenditure of capital, and by the application of enormous quantities of manure, that the agricultural class, whose rate of increase is slow, and whose redundant members a flourishing manufacturing industry is ready to absorb, has been able, under peculiar advantages of climate, situation, and markets, to maintain an existence at all times considerably straitened, and daily becoming more difficult under the pressure of increasing competition. In Ireland these fostering conditions are as yet completely wanting, and years may elapse before they are created. How can we be justified then, in the expectation of so remote a contingency, in tethering down to the soil by artificial means, an agricultural population far in excess of the requirements and the system of husbandry best adapted to the present circumstances of the country, in the expectation of the ultimate introduction of a system of 'petite culture' which, even