Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/74

Rh on at a slower rate: the best and most profitable land having been first cultivated, and the inferior soils being exposed by facility of intercourse and free trade to an increased competition with foreign soils.

From 1851 to 1862 the waste lands have been ascertained by the Registrar-General, and appears to have been reduced from 5,209,492 acres in 1851, to 4,507,733 in 1862, showing a decrease of 701,759 acres in waste since 1851.

If these be added to the 1,271,751 acres reclaimed between 1841 and 1851 (and mostly since 1844), it follows that of the 3,755,000 acres reported by Sir R. Griffith, to have been improvable at the commencement of 1845, almost 1,973,510 acres, or more than one-half have been reclaimed since 1844.

Thus, instead of the 3,755,000 acres, reported by Sir R. Griffith improvable in 1844, there would appear to be a little less than half that quantity (and that, of course, the most unprofitable half) now available for improvement.

As an increase of pasturage in Ireland, as well as an alleged neglect of cultivating improvable waste land, is often urged as a cause of the emigration, it is important to notice that the true explanation of pasture having increased so largely in Ireland, without any material diminution of the land under tillage, is to be found in the fact that nearly 2,000,000 acres have, as before shown, been reclaimed at that time.

The Emancipation of the Dorsetshire Labourer.

In connection with the subject of Irish emigration it may not be out of place to consider an incident which has lately met with a good deal of attention from those who interest themselves in the condition of the Dorsetshire labourer.

I give it as described in the "Times" of April 2nd, 1867.

"Distressed at their unsatisfactory condition, Mr. Girdlestone saw that their wages could only be improved by the force of competition. So he announced in our columns his willingness to act as a sort of agent for introducing the labourers of his district to masters elsewhere who would give them more liberal pay. He at once received numerous applications from Lancashire, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Kent, and even from Ireland, and the result has been that within six months he has sent out of his parish and neighbourhood as many as fifty labourers, of whom only one has as yet returned, of these sixteen are married men