To one point only will I recur.
Of the several observations I have made, none seem to have elicited such lively comment as those referring to the disproportion still existing in Ireland between the numbers dependent on agriculture and the proportion necessary for the perfect cultivation of the soil. As this is a vital point in the discussion, I may be permitted to adduce one or two further proofs of the correctness of my previous suggestions.
My method of calculation was a simple one. Having ascertained the number of hands employed in the cultivation of specified areas in those parts of England and Scotland where agriculture is best understood, I applied a similar scale to the occupied area of Ireland, and on its appearing that there were still about 300,000 more persons engaged in agriculture in Ireland than are found necessary to a very high rate of production in Great Britain I argued, not, as it has been absurdly stated, that this surplusage of agricultural industry should of necessity remove from the country, but that the application of a considerable portion of it to other employments would tend to reduce competition, and to increase both the profits of the farmer and the wages of the labourer. But as the analogy I drew was necessarily imperfect, I purposely went on the supposition that the whole of the 15,000,000 of acres in Ireland was cultivated as tillage land. But, in reality, little more than a
