Page:Letters to Lord John Russell on the Further Measures for the Social Amelioration of Ireland.djvu/24

21 of successful and very profitable reclamation of waste in Ireland, both bog and mountain, on both a large and a small scale. Some of this evidence I printed last year, in the hope of overcoming the fatal incredulity which checked the birth of your Lordship's embryo measure. Some of it may be seen in Lord Devon's recently printed Digest. I cannot venture to quote any portion in this place. It is enough to state that in most cases the cost of reclamation was entirely repaid by the second year's crop; in some even by that of the first year. In all, after repayment in full of the expense of reclaiming, land was left worth from ten to sixty shillings an acre, which had previously been almost valueless—at the utmost worth from one shilling to two or three.

But then it is said, "If so much profit can be derived from the reclamation of waste land, private enterprise will be sure to undertake and accomplish it.*' And this argument is conclusive with many against any proposed Legislative interference.

This indeed would be a full and sufficient answer in England! But the case of Ireland is anomalous, and her condition wholly abnormal. The ordinary rules which teach us to leave profitable works of this kind to private enterprise are inapplicable to a country in the circumstances which Ireland exhibits at present. The very fact that these wastes, though cultivable with profit, have remained uncultivated, except here and there in a few instances, prove