Mr. Fisher ends his most instructive letter by the following
facts, which destroy, smash, and pulverize the contention that Ireland cannot yield us any more soldiers because of her special position as in agricultural country :— " Dealing with the question of man-power, the same Command Paper points out that at the period of the return, and after deducting those whose labour was considered indispensable, there remained in the provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught 211,689 men of military age, and in Ulster 90,263. A curious error crept into the Belfast returns. The total of those whose labour is considered indispensable is given as 11,004. The employees of the shipyards alone, all of whom were and are engaged in war work, exceed that figure by more than three times. Command Paper 8,169 dwells upon the astonishing fact that ' the percentage of men between twenty and forty-five per hundred acres of all crops is in England and Wales 3.6, Scotland 3-I, and Ireland 6-8.' That circumstance shatters the ridiculous theory that every man in Ireland is needed for agriculture, of which we have heard a great deal lately, even from some public Officials who ought to, and who do, know to the contrary."
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