238 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



farms. They may be doing no good for themselves, 

 and never have done any good even in the best 

 times, and their bad habits and poverty may prove 

 they never are likely to do any good ; but there they 

 are to stay and vegetate, neither paying rent nor 

 benefiting themselves or the country. 



It is strange men do not see that this means that 

 all the bad habits of the lowest class in the country 

 will be stereotyped among us, and all progress to a 

 better state of things stopped. 



The main help in Connaught and that part of Ire- 

 land which is the worst, must be emigration. Wherever 

 there is a congestion of more on the soil than it can 

 support in comfort without trusting to potatoes, emi- 

 gration alone can relieve it. Of course no Government 

 can undertake emigration, still less enforce it ; they 

 would hinder it if they tried. But the Government can 

 give every facility for the purpose, and so open the 

 door for it as wide as possible. They can provide, as 

 ought to have been done long ago, proper agents at 

 the ports of embarkation, to advise and help all 

 emigrants asking for such help, and show where to 

 procure food and lodgings whilst waiting for the ship, 

 and forwarding them in every fair way. It is strange 

 this has not been done before. It is done for these 

 same poor people on their arrival at New York by 

 the American Government. There is reason to believe 

 emigrants are often grievously wronged and cheated 

 at our own ports before they embark. A reasonable 



