54 ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. [BOOK I. 



REMARKS. 



The reader will observe in the foregoing table a 

 phenomenon which requires to be explained, and 

 which may remove from the minds of those inter- 

 ested in political ceconomy many unfounded preju- 

 dices. Leinster is the least poor of the four pro- 

 vinces, and its population, during a space of ten 

 years, has increased only in the proportion of 100 

 to 108 ; whilst the population of Connaught, which 

 is in a state of misery unparalleled in Europe, 

 has augmented from 1 00 to 1 2 1 . The inquiries made 

 respecting the state of these two provinces prove 

 that, in these ten years, the misery has a little di- 

 minished in the province of Leinster, and has 

 greatly increased in that of Connaught. The in- 

 crease of the population is not therefore, as some 

 have believed, a proof of the prosperity of a coun- 

 try : in some instances it is a proof of the reverse. 

 Let us explain this. 



From the twelfth to the seventeenth century the 

 population of Europe increased very slowly, and 

 nearly in an equal proportion throughout Europe, 

 because the whole of Europe had the same laws. 

 No one had the right of building or settling on the 

 land without the permission of the lord of the 

 manor, who granted this only when he hoped to 

 derive advantage from so doing. The families who 

 settled asked of him a grant of lands, the quit-rents 



