Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/45

Rh paramount importance, and no man could contemplate the expatriation of so many brave hearts, and strong right arms with equanimity. The true remedy for the anomaly I have indicated, is to be found in the development of our commercial enterprize, of our mineral resources, of our manufacturing industry: it is not blood-letting to relieve a plethora, but stimulants to restore the balance of a congested circulation that are needed.

Still less would I advocate an attempt to divert, whether by moral pressure or otherwise, any portion of the land-occupying class from their present avocations. Persons of practical experience are aware that even in the most prosperous parts of Ireland, the extension of holdings undesirably diminutive, is continually taking place by a natural process, which need never involve the violent displacement of a single individual, and at a rate which rather exceeds than otherwise, the accumulation of the necessary capital in the hands of those, to whose farms the surrendered scraps of land are annexed. Death, bankruptcy, failing health, and the hundred casualties which diversify the current of human affairs, annually place at the disposal of the landlord a number of vacated tenancies, more than sufficient to carry out any amount of judicious consolidation. To hasten,