no My Little Farm 



people's money is spent in vain by the Department 

 teaching them how to develop skill and industry, 

 these fairweather farmers prefer to depend on 

 sunshine for half the year (and on moonshine for 

 the rest) keeping productive power at the barbaric 

 margin, which cannot but help to keep character 

 at the same level. I have no complaint to urge 

 on grounds of personal profit. The thing suits my 

 pocket well, enabling me to buy calves at less than 

 they are worth when I want them and to sell them 

 at more than they are worth when I have them 

 ready ; but I should prefer the joy of living among 

 a community of capable men in the land of my 

 fathers, and no man shall be more pkased than I 

 the day my special gains are cancelled, if ever, by 

 the advancing scale of work and character around 

 me. Meantime, I shall go on making unduly large 

 profits from the laziness and folly of my fellow 

 countrymen, frankly telling them in the fullest 

 detail how it is done. They can see already that 

 my place pays more in wages every year than the 

 value of the total production on the average place 

 of the same area ; and they can see that I have 

 more left than they have after the wages are paid. 

 Should Ireland ever wake up to her normal 

 destiny, these people must be called upon either 

 to quit the soil or make proper use of it in the 

 interests of the nation. What right has a man 

 to live idly on the margin by which he has con- 

 fiscated the former landlord, and to starve the 

 labourer for the accommodation of his own 

 idleness ? The farmer has no more right to the 



