Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/36

Rh lodging, fair remuneration, and above all, permanent employment. It is this growing difficulty of obtaining an unlimited amount of casual labour at low rates during summer, that is weaning the embarrassed tenant from his yearning after land. Eventually those only will be able to engage in farming with advantage who can either reduce their need of the labourer to a minimum, or can afford to pay him good wages all the year round. Hitherto the agricultural class has been composed too exclusively of occupiers, who though able to perform the ordinary operations required on their farms during two-thirds of the year, were dependent at seed time and harvest on a half-employed labouring population, who were relegated to idleness and penury, the moment the grain was sown, or stored. A worse distribution of industry could not be imagined. What we want are fewer