far as they can, for the employment of the working classes. They do all that in them lies to facilitate and encourage the outlay of capital, which is synonymous with the employment of labour. They remove, as far as practicable, by judicious legislation, all obstacles to the free combination of the three great requisites of production. They are alive to the fact that the labourer not only reproduces by his labour all that he consumes, but, in the excess of production over consumption, adds largely, in the aggregate, to the nation's wealth. They are aware, too, that, by employment and occupation of body and mind, the people are kept from plotting mischief. The devil tempts every one, but the idle man tempts the devil,' says a Spanish proverb. Soigner les ouvriers is the policy of Napoleon. Panem et Circenses was a cry of unmistakable significance in the days of the Roman Empire.

The following is a case in point:- In the year 1850, a charitable society in the city of Cork was applied to on behalf of a deserving family reduced to extreme destitution. The father was a carpenter, who, though willing to work, was unable to procure employment. The society afforded them relief for several weeks, and, at length, as all efforts of the poor man to obtain work at home were unavailing, they aided him to emigrate with his whole family to New York. They lost sight of him with the emigrant vessel that bore him from their shores; in fact, in the multitude of similar cases, they had totally forgotten him; when, in about two years afterwards, they were agreeably surprised by being handed the following extract from a letter which he wrote to the benevolent lady who had recommended him for relief:

New York, February 3, 1852.

I have the pleasure to remit the Society of St. Vincent de Paul five pounds sterling, with the most cheerful heart that man could possess. This was the worst season of the year to remit money, in consequence of the winter being so severe, this being the severest winter that was here in twenty years, as stated by people living here so long. There

INTERESTING LETTER OF AN IRISH EMIGRANT.

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was nothing doing, the rivers were frozen, and the people could not get without doors for three weeks. But it is changing, thank God, for the better; we expect a good spring. It would be a cold look out if I had nothing done before this winter. Thank God, I was able to enjoy myself, and keep within doors during the cold days, as well as any other tradesman in this city. Madam, you are anxious to know from me at what business I work. I worked carpentering business for twelve months; did not like how I was getting on in that business, and took another way of living, by which a man must make himself generally useful in this country. I am at present making packing boxes, which was the best business in this city. The kind of boxes I make is sperm candle boxes, cracker boxes, wine boxes, tea boxes, and mustard boxes, which must be made of fancy wood, and neatly finished. There is nothing that was ever thought of or instituted for the use of man, but is exported from this city, all in boxes. This is hard work. What makes it so hard is because a man has to make a good many of them, to be able to make any wages. My boy and I must make a great lot of them per day, so as to be able to make three dollars, at four cents, that is two pence, per box. Madam, you must know that the young fellow and I have not much time to talk about the 'repail' of the Union, in being able to make three pounds British per week. Sometimes we make four pounds, according to the run of work we get. I have to inform you, thank God, that I have 150 dollars in bank. I would have 200, were it not for twenty-five I gave my daughter and this which I now send the society. I expect to have 300 next spring, with the assistance of God. I wear as good a suit of clothes as any gentleman in the City of Cork, and twenty dollars' worth of a watch in my pocket.

What a contrast is presented by the position of this man in America, and that which he occupied in his native land! At home, however willing to work, he is without employment, his wife and children are starving, and he and they are all likely to become, ere long, permanent burdens on the poor rates. He emigrates, and he is able forthwith to support himself and his family in comfort. Nay, more, he has not only the necessaries, but the luxuries of life: for, a good suit of clothes and twenty dollars' worth of a watch in one's pocket' are luxuries quite Utopian, quite beyond the confines of hope for the struggling tradesman, on the verge of pauperism, in Ireland. Add to this

he is saving money at the rate of 100 dollars a year. Still more interesting than the economic is the moral aspect of this case. The poor man need not have sent one penny to the charitable society that enabled him to emigrate. Nothing was expected; he was entirely forgotten. But no: he remits his benefactors 5., one-eighth of his two years' savings, which he knows will be devoted to some other deserving case similar to his own. The departure of a good citizen such as this, of a tradesman capable of comfortably supporting his family, and adding, in his accumulations, to the general wealth, is a serious loss to any country; and unsatisfactory indeed must be the social and economic condition of that country, which, with her industrial resources far short of development, is unable to utilize such a man, and must cast him forth, and tens of thousands like him, every year, as useless burdens, and send them to enrich a foreign land!

One line in this man's letter appositely illustrates one of the main causes of Irish agitation--namely, the want of industrial occupation for the people:-"Madam, the young fellow and I have not much time to talk about the "repail" of the Union, in being able to make three pounds British per week.' If Irish workmen could steadily earn one-fourth or one-sixth of this amount on the average, we should be much less troubled by Fenianism, or the other disquieting influences which are so detrimental not only to Ireland but to the whole empire.

POPULATION THE LIFE-BLOOD OF STATES.

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CHAPTER XLV.

POPULATION THE LIFE-BLOOD OF STATES-DECLINE IN THE POPULATION OF

IRELAND; AN ECONOMIC NECESSITY-ENGLAND, IN 1861, TWICE AS DENSELY PEOPLED AS IRELAND-TOTAL AREAS OF ENGLAND AND wales, AND OF IRELAND RESPECTIVELY; AREAS OF ARABLE LAND; POPULATION IN 1861; NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS TO EVERY 500 ACRES OF ARABLE LAND IN EACH COUNTRY-COMMON ERROR, THAT THERE ARE PROPORTIONALLY A MUCH GREATER NUMBER EMPLOYED IN AGRICULTURE IN IRELAND THAN IN ENGLAND AND WALES; CAUSE OF THIS ERROR-OCCUPATIONS OF THE PEOPLE, WITH THE NUMBERS IN EACH CLASS, IN BOTH COUNTRIES; NUMBERS OF THE CLASS AGRICULTURAL IN EACH COUNTRY; NUMBER OF CULTIVATORS TO 500 ACRES OF ARABLE LAND IN EACH COUNTRYCULTIVATORS IN EACH COUNTRY VIEWED IN RELATION TO THE PROPORTIONS OF TILLAGE AND PASTURE.

FROM the foregoing considerations, it is evident that, as labour is the main source of wealth, so population is the life-blood of states. But, unfortunately, while the population of other countries is steadily advancing, that of Ireland is declining in an alarming ratio; and, politically and socially constituted as Ireland is, that decline is an economic necessity.

By the Census of 1861, it appears that England was then twice as densely peopled as Ireland, the numbers being 393 inhabitants to every 500 statute acres of arable land in England and Wales, against 186 inhabitants to the same area in Ireland. Yet the population of England were all employed at high wages, and comfortably supported by England's fully developed agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; while Ireland, with her imperfectly developed agricultural resources, her greatly neglected manufacturing capabilities, and her consequently small commerce, was unable to employ and support her relatively so much smaller population.

The total area of England and Wales is given in the Board of Trade agricultural returns of December 1868,' as 37,324,883 statute acres, and that of Ireland as 20,322,641. The extent of 1 Page 10.

land under all kinds of crops, bare fallow, and grass,1 is stated at 25,542,427 acres in England and Wales, and 15,575,270 in Ireland.

The respective areas and populations will then stand thus:

But we shall be reminded that Ireland is mainly an agricultural country, and that, in instituting our comparison, we must make due allowance for the labour absorbed by the mines and manufactures of England, involving, with their consequent commerce, a vast town population, not to speak of the capital, with its three millions of inhabitants; and that, doing this, we must admit that Ireland is still greatly overpeopled a fact alleged to be indisputably proved by the low rate of wages in that country, as compared with England and Wales. This is indeed a question of the very first importance, and one that requires to be thoroughly discussed before we proceed further in our inquiry; especially as considerable misconception exists on the subject.

It is an error but too common to suppose that there are proportionally a much greater number employed in agriculture in Ireland than in England and Wales. This error has passed current, because it has been assumed as a matter of fact by writers of deservedly great authority on Irish subjects. They evidently err by confounding the present with the past; and, furthermore, they and their readers are misled by the form in which the proposition is commonly stated. It is this:-The numbers engaged in agriculture in Ireland, as given by the Census Commissioners of 1861, are 18.3 per cent. of the population, against 101 per cent. of the population so engaged in

1 Inclusive of permanent pasture not broken up in rotation (exclusive of heath or mountain land) in both cases.