"May 7, 1849.-Notwithstanding that fearful, and I believe unparalleled, numbers have been unhoused in this union within the year (probably 15,000), it seems hardly credible that 1,200 more have had their dwellings levelled within a fortnight-these ruthless acts of barbarity are submitted to with an unresisting patience hardly credible." Referring to this official report, Sir Robert Peel stated:

"I do not think that records of any country, civilized or barbarous, present materials for such a picture."-(Hansard June 8, 1879).

And writing on the same subject, Joseph Kay, in his work "Social Conditions of the People," Vol. I, observes:

"We have made Ireland-I speak it deliberately-we have made it the most degraded and the most miserable country in the worldall the world is crying shame upon us."

That the great criminal responsibility for the Irish evictions did not rest solely on the landlords but also on the English Government, was admitted by Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons. He said:

"The deeds of the Irish landlords are to a great extent our deeds. We are participes criminis; we with power in our hands looked on; we not only looked on but we encouraged and sustained."

Famine in various degrees was almost continuous. The more serious ones occurred in 1819, 1823, 1830, 1847-49, and 1879-80. The Duke of Wellington admitted in Parliament in 1834 that ever since he had been Chief Secretary there had hardly been a single year in which the Irish were not threatened with famine. On October 25, 1839, "The Times" stated that

'more misery is crowded into a single province of Ireland than can be found in all the rest of Europe put together-the well-being of millions is disregarded, famine and misery stalk through the land."

Thackeray paid a visit to Ireland in 1843 and wrote an account of it in his "Irish Sketch Book," in which we find the following:

"The traveler has before him the spectacle of a people dying of hunger, and in the very richest countries men are suffering and starving by millions."

That the Great F'amine was artificial was explicitly stated by "The Times" on June 26, 1845:

"The people have not enough to eat. They are suffering a real though an artificial famine. Nature does her duty; the land is fruitful enough, nor can it be fairly said that man is wanting. The Irishman is disposed to work, in fact man and nature together do produce abundantly. The island is full and overflowing with human food. But something ever intervenes between the hungry mouth and the ample banquet."

Lord John Russell, British Premier, also admitted that in 1847 the wheat crop, for instance, was above the average, and cattle there were in abundance; but these two commodities were borne away from the Irish ports daily, in sight of a starving people to pay the rack-rents of absentee laudlords.

Although over a million people died of famine during the ten years following 1845, this was by no means the last visitation of an evil which remained endemic in the country during the rest of the century; and in November, 1880, General Gordon, the hero of Khartoum, wrote to the "Times" from County Cork that:

"From all accounts and from my own observation, the state of our fellow-countrymen in the parts I have named is worse than that of any people in the world, let alone Europe."

Coercion, eviction and famine combined to produce enormous emigration from the shores of Ireland during the second half of the nineteenth century, although the question engaged the attention of the world long before 1845. Already in 1835 a Parliamentary Commission stated that in Ireland there were 2,380,000 persons liable to die of hunger, and in the fifteen years which preceded the Great Famine 800,000 emigrated from Ireland, while only 370,000 left from Great Britain. During the thirty years from 1831 to 1861, three million emigrated from Ireland and one and onehalf million from Great Britain.-(Thom's Official Directory, 1852 and 1861).

Speaking in the House of Commons on July 6, 1854, Mr. Bright said that no man could travel in Ireland "without feeling that some enormous crime has been committed by the Government under which that people live"; and we read in the "Principles of Political Economy" by John Stuart Mill:

"The land of Ireland like the land of every other country belongs to the people which inhabit it * * * and when the inhabitants of a country leave it ‘en masse' because a Government does not leave them room to live, that Government is already judged and condemned."

According to the official Census the total population was reduced in sixty years from 8,250,000 in 1841 to 4,390,000 in 1911-an appalling record of depopulation that has a parallel nowhere in the civilized world.

The following table indicates (1) the natural growth of Ireland's population during a comparatively peaceful period, although one marked by increasing emigration-and (2) the striking depopulation of a later period signalized by famines, eviction and intensive emigration:

COMPARATIVE STATISTICAL TABLES OF POPULATIONS

(From British Official Returns)

The population of England and Wales in 1911 was over four (4) times larger than it was in 1801.

The population of Scotland in 1911 was, approximately, three (3) times larger than it was in 1801.

The population of Ireland in 1911 had declined by one-fifth (1-5) of that of 1801.

England and Wales in 1911 had a population two and one-third (21-3) times greater than that in 1841.

Scotland in 1911 had a population one and three-fourths (134) times greater than it had in 1841.

The population of Ireland in 1911 was less by one-half (2) than that recorded in 1841.

These figures form a record of national loss unparalleled in the civilized world. The decline in population was not due to natural causes.

The Irish race is not decadent. With the exception of Holland, the birth-rate in Ireland is the highest in Europe.*

The fertility of the Irish people "is almost the greatest in Europe, and "Ireland * * * among all countries from which figures can be obtained, shows an increased fertility."

*Inquiry into European Birth-rates by Statistical Department of the Government of Bavaria, 1910. †Proceedings of the London Statistical Society, 1906.

COMPARATIVE STATISTICAL TABLES OF POPULATION OF IRELAND
AND OTHER SMALL NATIONS

Had Ireland's population, from 1831 to 1913 increased at the same rate as Bohemia's, the population of Ireland in 1913 would have been 13,592,951 instead of 4,379,076.

Had Bohemia's population decreased proportionately to that of Ireland in the same period, Bohemia would have had in 1913 but 2,223,000, instead of 6,860,029.

Ireland-Finland:

Had Ireland's population, from 1850 to 1914, increased at the same rate as Finland's, the population of Ireland in 1914 would have been 13,067,913 instead of 4,381,398.

Had Finland's population decreased as had Ireland's in the same period Finland would have had in 1914 but 1,047,626 instead of 3,269,401. Ireland-Esthonia:

Had Ireland, from 1856 to 1915, increased in population as Esthonia did, Ireland's population in 1915 would have been 9,198,190, instead of 4,337,000.

Ireland-Russian Poland:

Had Ireland increased in population as Russian Poland did from 1871 onward, Ireland in 1915 would have had 10,634,412 people instead of 4,337,000.

Ireland-Prussian Poland:

Had Ireland increased in population from 1855 to 1910 as Prussian Poland did, it would in 1910 have had 9,021,997 people instead of 4,385,000. Ireland-Austrian Poland:

Had Ireland increased in population as Austrian Poland had from 1846 to 1913, Ireland would in 1913 have had 15,251,640 people instead of 4,379,000.

Had normal conditions of government prevailed, the natural increase in the population of Ireland between 1841 and 1911 (latest Census year) would have given the country today a population of at least 12,000,000, and not the 4,350,000 persons as recorded by the British authorities.

The causes for Ireland's appalling depopulation in the past century have been written in the blood and tears of the Irish Nation—as Coercion, Eviction, Famine, and Emigration! This record is without parallel in the world's history. It is in itself a comprehensive indictment and condemnation of England's prolonged attempt to rule the Irish people against their will.