Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/75

Rh with families, and the remainder single men. The married men, instead of 7s. a week, are in no case earning less than 12s. a week, in addition to a house and garden. In fact, they have doubled their wages. Nor is this the most important result. Of course, the rate of wages about Halberton has risen at the least by 1s., and in some places by 2s. a week. The process, having been once thus started, must, of course, go further. Those who have migrated will continue to send back accounts of their prosperity; and if the farmers want to keep the young men of Halberton in their service, they will have to pay them as high wages as they can gain elsewhere."—Times, April 2, 1867.

"Of course, this is not in all respects an agreeable task to undertake. The farmers in such neighbourhoods as these are not the most enlightened of their class, and will scarcely appreciate a change of which the only effect immediately visible is that they are compelled to pay higher wages to all their labourers."—Ib.

"But we have no doubt that, in time, even the farmers themselves will come to acknowledge that Mr. Grirdlestone is doing them the greatest possible service. No one will benefit more than they from an improvement in the condition of their labourers. We believe that, in many cases, they will even pay less. What the farmer has hitherto refused to pay in wages he has had to pay in rates, and the poor-rate will assuredly be diminished as the rate of wages increases. In one way or another, a labourer and his family must receive enough to live upon. A half-starving man has neither the will nor the power to work, and there can be no doubt that the proverbial sleepiness and sloth of agricultural work are in a great degree due to sheer lack of vital force. If the farmer has to double the labourer's wages, he may be sure that he will double the work which he gets out of him. In some cases we dare say almost everything else on the farm has been improved by intercourse with other districts. The labourer may be improved in the same way, and with equally beneficial results, not only to himself, but to every one concerned."—Ib.

Now, what more has Mr. Girdlestone done than to stimulate the very process which is now taking place of its own accord in Ireland?

Instead of deploring the desire of the Irish farmer's son "to go forth and seek his fortune," we ought to rejoice at the exhibition of so much enterprize. One of the most pernicious weaknesses of the Irish character was an unwillingness to allow the junior members of the family to leave home. "Subletting exists from a mistaken wish to keep the family together until they are too old to go to a trade."—''Dig. Dev. Com''. p. 434. This evidence is repeated up and down the whole volume. 