knowledge of the emigrants, would fail in devising some plan for recovering the advances made to them.

Lest I should be accused of trying to set colonisation to Manitoba in too rosy a light, of trying to prove too much, it is right that I should notice the objections often made to it, which ought to be fully considered. These objections are:

1. The water in some districts is said to be alkaline and unwholesome. No doubt there is some truth in this, and to strangers at Winnipeg, for instance, it forms a serious drawback. The wells being shallow are often impregnated with alkaline and other objectionable qualities. There is, however, an abundant supply, and, with care as to boiling, any injurious tendency is much lessened. This is just one of the points to be attended to in selecting sites for emigrants.

2. Fuel is very scarce and dear, and for a time this presents serious difficulties. There is little timber on the prairies, except on the banks of the streams, and the burning of the grass interferes with the growth of timber, for which otherwise the land is admirably adapted. In Minnesota I found prairie grass tightly twisted into wisps used as a fuel, and I was assured that a man in three days could mow enough for the year's supply. If this can be generally adopted, it gives a ready and cheap fuel. But ere long the eastern and northern extensions of the Canadian Pacific Railway will be carried through forest tracts, and timber no doubt will be sent into Manitoba at a low price, as at present it is to the settlers along the railway through Minnesota. Coal, too, is to be found on the Souris and Saskatchewan river districts, and Mr. Stephen, of Montreal, who is largely interested in the subject, assured me that within two years they would be able to lay down coal at Winnipeg, from southern Minnesota, at $6, or 248. per ton. At present it costs nearly 51.

3. The heavy rains. Settlers from western Ireland are not likely to object to moisture, and the country as a whole has an extremely dry atmosphere. In fine weather on the prairies one is almost independent of roads, and, except over swamps, can drive nearly anywhere. But at some seasons the settlers must be prepared for heavy rains, which soak into the rich alluvial soil, and make roads and plains almost impassable. This is one of the drawbacks to be faced in some districts, and it is almost a necessary evil where anyone is living on lands of such deep rich fertility. As population increases no doubt the roads will be improved.

4. The intense cold, and the long winter. This must be duly acknowledged. From the beginning of December until the end of March frost reigns supreme, and a thermometer standing 30° to 40° below zero is a cold we can hardly imagine in England. The climate is, however, so dry and the air so still that, with the exception of occasional storms of blinding snow and wind, the residents state that the cold is by no means unpleasant or difficult to bear. There is a great absence of illness, and persons suffering from asthma often

come into Manitoba to reside for the sake of the pure dry air. The freedom from all malarious fevers in autumn is also important to notice. Horses and cattle also seem to endure the cold winters with

out injury.

Looking at the map and noticing that Manitoba is quite to the south of the great north-west territory, one would be apt to suppose if it is cold there, it must be still colder further north. But as a matter of fact it is not so, for the isothermal line which cuts the south end of Lake Winnipeg, runs from thence north-west as far as the Peace River, keeping to the north of the whole basin of the Saskatchewan. The mean temperature from April to August is 58°. In the summer the days are exceedingly hot, but the nights are always cool and fresh. On the whole, I am disposed to think that the severity of the weather is not more felt than it is generally throughout Canada. At the same time, it is most important that emigrants should understand and provide for it.

Here, it may be asked, has the poor Irish peasant, whose prosperity we are planning, got within himself the necessary qualifications to fit him to be an emigrant? Has he got the self-help, the industry, the forethought, the self-command? In reply I can only point to what his brethren have done already-not to the poor, degraded Irishmen of New York and other eastern cities, but the numberless instances both in the United States and Canada, and to others who have already settled in the far west and succeeded.

I may mention one or two instances which came more especially under my notice. Whilst at Ottawa I was told by the member for the county that a large number of his constituents were Irishmen, many of whom are the descendants of those who fled from the famine of 1846-7. These people had at that period taken up small tracts of most unpromising forest-land, and by their energy and perseverance had cleared the timber and become possessors of well-cultivated farms. He spoke of them as a thrifty and industrious race, contented and well-to-do.

In many other districts I heard the same statement made; 'the Irish on the land are a thrifty and industrious people, whatever they are in the towns, with the degrading influences around them.' In Minnesota I had two counties pointed out to me, chiefly in the hands of Irishmen, which were remarked for their good cultivation.

The same was told me in several districts of New York and Pennsylvania, and the Hon. J. S. Hewett, of New York, informed me that the majority of the Irishmen employed in his extensive iron works had lands of their own, which were well cultivated, and had been much improved since the men, who had been tenants, were allowed at their own request to become purchasers.

On this subject I may be allowed again to quote Lord Dufferin. He says:

If it is objected that the pauperised population of the west would make but poor emigrants, I would reply that their previous life will have fitted them infinitely better for their new destinies than the Icelanders, who have been driven forth from their Arctic abodes by an analogous necessity, since these last had never seen a plough, a road, a tree, or a field of corn; yet so delighted are they with their new possession that they have called it 'Paradise.'

There remains one other point to be noticed, and that not an easy one. In my pamphlet on Irish Distress and its Remedies,' I mentioned what is well known, that the Irish priesthood of the Church of Rome frequently object to emigration. It is not necessary to ascribe this, as is often ungenerously done, to their pay depending on the number of their flocks, which makes them reluctant to lose any parishioners. The pay is poor enough; and they earn it, for whatever be their failings, the priests look after their people. What they urge is that in the great American cities men and women become alike demoralised, and lose their simplicity. Their clerical brethren write-to them to send no more out. Better, they say, that they should starve at home than run the risk of ruin there. But Bishop Ireland's Association meets this difficulty. The priests go with the people and enter into their interests. Schools and chapels are opened at once, and strict rules are enforced against the sale of spirits. I am glad that I am again supported by the opinion of Lord Dufferin when I say I am convinced that, if there is to be successful emigration on a large scale from western Ireland, it will be needful for the Government to unite with the priesthood, and to give them every assistance in providing for the religious care and oversight of their people. If priests could be sent with their flocks, it would be money well laid out to afford them a free passage, and a grant of land in their new settlement. In Canada this would be looked on as a perfectly natural arrangement.

I fear that some of those whose sympathies I should like best to enlist in favour of organised emigration may take exception to this recognition of the Roman Catholic Church. I can only ask them fully to consider the question as I believe I have done. Conversions from the Romish Church have not been very frequent in Ireland, and are not in the future likely to be more successful among a half-starved peasantry in Connaught than among prosperous settlers in Manitoba. It must surely be admitted that the people are likely to learn more good than evil from their priests, and that in the prairies it is better that they should have their priests than be altogether without religious teachers. At any rate I am not now proposing any scheme for conversion, but a scheme for lifting up a very poor and miserable class of people who exist almost at our doors, and making them into prosperous and independent farmers and labourers.

I cannot but see that any Government emigration scheme at present for Ireland would meet with hot opposition. It would be denounced as a treacherous device for weakening the country for the final struggle with England. We should be blamed as heartless

Saxons for wishing to drive a poor people from their ancestral homes. We should be assured that there is untold wealth still within its narrow seas, and that Ireland's bogs might be drained so as to support half as many more than its present population. All this we must expect. I advocate emigration in the cause of humanity, and not in that of any political party, for it is no party question. I would ask my opponents, who after five years will be most prosperous-the peasant possessing 160 acres of the finest wheat-land in America, on which he is paying off a debt of only 100l., or his brother who elects to stay in Ireland cultivating an inferior soil, to drain and improve every single acre of which a sum of 10l. or 15l. has to be expended. Consider what can be done upon land in Ireland with 100%., as compared with the same sum in the United States or Canada. I am no advocate for enforced emigration, but I wish that the Irishman should have clearly placed before him the opening which awaits him to go in and possess the good land.

Doubtless he will have hardships to endure, no emigrant's life has been begun without. But the hardships he will be called to suffer he will suffer in common with the sons of gentlemen of culture and position, with large farmers from Canada or England or Scotland, who with the golden hope of the future before them are willing to brave the rigours and difficulties of a life in the Saskatchewan or Red River valleys.

I cannot do better than close what I have to say in the words of a valued friend in the Nineteenth Century for January.

Mr. F. Seebohm writes as follows:

Resist the temptation artificially to provide for the maintenance of population at too high a level. . . . Compare the waste lands of Ireland with the trans-Atlantic prairies, and instead of asking the question whether it will barely pay to plough up the Irish bog, boldly ask which will pay best, the same labour and capital expended here or there; and according to the answer cultivate the Irish bog or leave it alone.... Open the sluice of emigration as widely as possible till a real level in population is reached, grudging no longer the flow of population to the place where it is most wanted. Never mind if, having done justice to the peasant tenants of Ireland, the free course of economic laws should be found there as in England, as capital increases, to work in favour of large rather than of small holdings. Rejoice if Irish tenants find a better investment for their capital than can be got from a few poor acres of land, and a wider field for their increasing enterprise and energy than bogs and mountains afford. If this should be the result of England's doing justice to Ireland, then the higher happiness and freedom of her sons, wherever they may live, will reflect back a greater prosperity on their old country and upon those who stay at home than any possible ingenuity could secure by making artificial and uneconomical provision for them where they ought not to be.

J. H. TUKE.

ABOLITION OF LANDLORDS.

Ir may seem superfluous to English minds to discuss what appears to them so revolutionary a scheme as a general, compulsory, and immediate transfer of the land of Ireland from the landlords to the tenants. The idea has, however, not only gained a strong hold over the minds of the peasantry, but is even regarded with considerable favour by some advocates of the landlord's claims; while in England too there is probably an increasing body of opinion in large popular constituencies, if not within the walls of the House of Commons, in favour of drastic changes, the effect of which on the British taxpayer himself is not very clearly understood. It may, therefore, be worth while to inquire how the suggestion presents itself to Irish minds, what the results would be in Ireland, and whether the British taxpayer is likely to accept cheerfully the part assigned to him in the matter.

'Expropriation' is regarded by many thoughtful people in Ireland as the only possible alternative for a reform which should give to the tenant the practical security and joint interest in the land, which the scheme popularly called the three F's aims at affording him.

It is not merely that the relations between landlord and tenant are at present over a large portion of the West strained and disturbed, but the state of affairs has disclosed to many minds grave social dangers from the operation of the Land Laws, even under the protection given to the tenant by the Land Act of 1870, which were unsuspected by good landlords, but for which they are nevertheless suffering; to which, now they are known, many landlords are anxious to apply a remedy, and which amount to an extensive failure of the English system.

No one now denies that the State has a right itself to take possession of property by compulsory purchase at a price not less than the market value, where the public interests require such a transfer to be made. The State has also an unquestionable right to compel owners of property to sell to public bodies or other parties on similar conditions. The price in such cases has usually been calculated on a basis more liberal than that which the state of the market at a given moment under a forced sale would afford, and considerable allowance