WHAT WILL DO GOOD IN IRELAND. 221 



country can be better off. The poor fellows who 

 raised from the land I farm one-fourth of the pro- 

 duce it now yields, not only lived like paupers them- 

 selves, but sorely hindered the prosperity of the 

 country too, because they added nothing to its trade. 

 My labourers now, who work on the same fields, not 

 only spend much of their 10s. or 12s. a week in ways 

 that do good to trade, but the increased produce they 

 raise, beyond what the poor tenant used to raise, adds 

 greatly to the trade of the country. This truth lies at 

 the bottom of the whole question. Men may shut their 

 eyes to it, but they cannot escape it. Unless there is 

 increased produce, things can never be better. All 

 this is ignored by the Land League people. Their 

 end is that every man in Ireland should live at ease 

 under his own vine and fig tree, without rent or aught 

 else to disturb him, and work and drink as much or as 

 little as he likes. This might perhaps answer in a 

 way, if it could only be shown where the money is to 

 come from that will support him and his whilst he 

 thus lives like a gentleman. The idea of living at ease 

 like a gentleman has more to do with Irish troubles 

 than most men see. 



But to take the subject in order. 



M. de Molinari asks, If any one told the ouvriers 

 of Montmartre and Belville, Paris, that hence- 

 forth, on account of their poverty, they should only 

 pay half the present rent of their apparlements, 

 or none at all, what effect would it produce upon 



