THE POVERTY OF IRELAND.
[To THE EDITOR OF TEE " SPECTATOR."J
Sta,—Of the facts about Ireland which I am submitting to eager rustic audiences, I venture to think that the leading one is too much ignored by most public speakers and writers. In vain do Sir James Caird, Mr. Goldwin Smith, Mr. Take, and a few others remind the British public that the Irish Question is essentially agrarian, not political. The mastery of a few easy figures is indispensable. The 600,000 Irish occupiers fall, with approximate accuracy, into three equal groups of:— (1), 200,000 under 24 valuation ; (2), 200,000 between 21 and £10; (3), 200,000 over 210.
I will limit my remarks to Group 1, where the agony of the Irish problem is most acute, and requires separate and, I think, immediate treatment, for evictions are a continuing evil there. The 200,000 occupiers in Group 1 are simply engaged in a doubly hopeless struggle, viz., with Nature and their landlords. Where not even a bare living is to be got out of the land, no rent can be due to a landlord, except in the shape of interest for money laid out in some kind of improvement.
What rent has hitherto been extracted has come mainly either out of wages earned beyond the sea, or out of the sea itself, in some kind of value fished out in the shape of fish, sea-weed for manure, sea-sand, salt, &c. While the total remission of their low rents, varying from 15s. to 24, would be of little avail in substantially alleviating the chronic misery of these poverty- stricken tenants, it is a crying evil that they should be liable to eviction from self-created homes for non-payment of rent.
If Home-rule would effectually remedy this crying evil, I should be the first to welcome Home-rule. But Home-rule would aggravate the problem, for Home-rulers are, one and all, bitterly opposed to emigration, which, from Mr. Tuke's evidence and personal observation, I am convinced is the sole effectual remedy. Migration, the Home-rulers' panacea, is, unfortunately, inapplicable, as the more fertile parts of Ireland are already over-populated, there being but 31 acres in Leinster per exist- ing head of population, to 34 in Connaught and Munster.— I am, Sir, &c., Si.u-Mile Bottom, Cambridge, May 27th. W. H. Heti
Previous page
