Page:The Irish land acts; a short sketch of their history and development.djvu/16

8 all countries, and the practical monopoly that formerly protected the agriculturists of the British Isles came to an end. The policy of Free Trade was introduced just as steam transport began to develop. Wheat-growing and its subsidiary industries became unprofitable in Great Britain and Ireland. The change did not vitally affect England or Scotland, as the rural inhabitants of these countries were able to get employment in the great industrial centres that the new Free Trade policy fostered and developed. In Ireland it was different. Here there were, practically speaking, no industries to give work to the unemployed people. The landowners were thoroughly alarmed by their experience of the Famine years. They found that the system of letting the land by competition to a tenantry living on the margin of subsistence, with the lowest possible standard of comfort, meant total loss if lean years came, when the owners not alone failed to recover their rents, but became liable for the payment of an enormous poor rate. Those who weathered the storm, and the successors of those who went under, began to look around for a new method of dealing with the land. They found that the old tillage system had ceased to pay—foreign competition had killed it. A new industry, however, appeared above the horizon, fostered by the changed conditions that prevailed in Great Britain. Corn could be brought from across the seas in quantities, and with an economy, that made home competition impossible. But with meat it was different. The existing means of transport, improved though they had been, did not permit of cattle being brought into England—in fact, there was no country from which they could be sent so as to compete with those reared in Ireland. Large districts in Leinster, Munster and Connaught were admirably suited for live stock, and if turned into pasture would yield a profit which they had failed to produce under tillage. Obviously the first step in the process of transformation was to get rid of the existing tenant farmers. Emigration was accordingly encouraged, and the exodus began that has lasted to the present day. For, although the conditions that started emigration have been modified, the habit continued. The enormous industrial development that began in the United States gave unlimited employment to the Irish emigrants, whose numbers never appeared to" overcrowd the labour market.

The question has constantly been debated whether, the great decrease in the number of people in Ireland has been a benefit or a disaster. The answer to this obviously depends upon the answer to the previous question: What population is sufficient tor the prosperity of the country? But as much difference of opinion is caused by tacit and contradictory assumptions on this point, It may be as well if we pause here for a moment to discuss it explicitly.

It is clear that the mere number of inhabitants per square mile IS no immediate proof of the well-being of a country; for Devonshire, with 175 persons to the square mile, may be as