Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/34

Rh purpose of enabling their friends to follow their example. Now, unless they had prospered, these savings could not have been accumulated; unless their new existence had been full of promise they would not have tempted their brethren to join them. But what if, instead of setting forth to reap the golden harvests of the West, these forlorn multitudes had remained pent up within their rainy valleys, would the existing population, those that have clung to the old country in spite of everything,—would they be now the better or the worse? Two obvious consequences must have followed,—wages would have been lower, rents higher than they are now, while a very large proportion of the peasantry would be occupying farms half the size of those they arc at present cultivating. Now, low wages and high rents may be advantageous in a certain sense to the manufacturer, to the landlord, and to the recruiting sergeant; but how do they affect the masses—the tenant, the labourer, and the mechanic ?

When I was in the west of Ireland some 18 years ago, the rate of agricultural wages varied from half-a-crown to five shillings a week. Ever since,