Mr. Hennessy on Tuesday called attention to the immense emigration
from Ireland, which he said amounted in 1861 to 64,292, in 1862 to 70,117, in 1863 to 117,820, and would in this year be 156,000. Between 1851 and 1861 no less than 400,000 persons had quitted Ulster alone. He believed that at the same time the rate of wages was declining, marriage decreasing, and cultivation growing gradually more contracted, and proposed that Government should induce the people to stay by great public works for the reclamation of land. Sir Robert Peel in reply stated his belief that the tide of emigration was diminishing in force, having fallen off in May, informed the House that 14,000,000 sterling' lie- longing to farmers was now lodged in joint-stock banks in Ireland at 2i per cent., contended that cereals had been replaced by flax, affirmed that the cities of Ireland were unusually pro- sperous, and thought that the effect of three bad seasons was gradually passing away. Both he and Lord Palmerston approved of emigration as a relief, but neither appeared fully to perceive that an emigration towards manufactures and trade relieves agri- culture just as completely as an emigration to America.
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