Then and Now 25 



of the remaining fourth, under the double neces- 

 sity for better work on the one side and better 

 management on the other, with a doubled effici- 

 ency of brain in the business of agricultural 

 production, and an agrarian character advancing 

 at the same rate, instead of rotting in a sink 

 of artificially protected Congestion. In other 

 countries, where crime is not officially preferred to 

 culture, the desire for a higher standard of living 

 impels the peasant proprietor to work for the 

 maximum production, and character is necessarily 

 advanced at a like degree ; but I see no sign of this 

 in a country where the peasant dares not even claim 

 personal property in what he calls his own mind. 

 The soil of Ireland is usurped by men who 

 are not farmers. They are only labourers, and 

 incompetent at that. 



The national significance of it for the future 

 will be more clearly realised when we reflect that 

 considerably more than half the agrarian popula- 

 tion of Ireland live by little farms about the size 

 of mine and less, all now on the way to become 

 peasant proprietors, each employer his own 

 labourer, and each labourer his own employer, 

 but all alike methodically deprived by their 

 " education " of that freedom in mental and 

 industrial motive which we invariably find at the 

 foundation of successful proprietorship in other 

 countries. Until the Irish peasant is moved up 

 mentally, this huge expenditure on his material 

 improvement must remain waste in the main ; and 

 by the terms of the Home Rule contrivance, he 

 would, in about twelve years after the enact- 



