The Wages of Sin 177 



of the income. It is probably much less, but I 

 will not depend on probability. To be on the 

 safe side, let us take it at ^30 a year. A reduction 

 of seven shillings in the pound on this is only 

 10 ios., while the gain from increased prices 

 on the same farm is over twice that amount. 

 With the growth of American towns and German 

 factories consuming the agricultural produce 

 otherwise exportable to us, the supply in our 

 market is relatively diminished, and the Irish 

 farmer has his prices increased for him while he 

 sleeps, increasing his income from this alone by 

 a total more than twice his utmost gains from 

 agitation, but the agitator does not want 

 him to know this. The tendency in prices 

 continues to work still farther in his favour, and 

 there is not the smallest sign of it stopping. The 

 advance in the market value of his produce is 

 calculated at the rate of I per cent, per annum 

 for the last fifteen years, and the causes of it in 

 the international economy of agricultural supply 

 are still increasing their activity, even in normal 

 conditions, and apart from any inflations follow- 

 ing war. In so far as our farmers awake to their 

 real opportunity, the professional politician must 

 take a back seat, and I must infer his hostility for 

 a compliment. He would have no such need to 

 attack me if I had no effect in helping to open 

 the farmers' eyes. There is a difference between 

 restoring a man to sight and preserving his blind- 

 ness to make a profession of leading him blind. 



