66 ECONOMIC DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION. 



as supported by agriculture hy 2)4 out of five millions. Nor is this all, for 

 these reductions being proportionately greater than those for the whole 

 population, the percentage employed in or supported by agriculture has 

 decreased as well as the total numbers. 



The land in England and Scotland employs as many, and probably sup- 

 ports nearly as many, as it did in 1841, and meanwhile other productive 

 industries support the bulk of our great increase of population. In Ireland, 

 on the other hand, not only does the land fail to support half of those it once 

 in some fashion maintained, but other productive industries {e.g., building 

 and manufacture) are even worse off, and, like agriculture, show it both in 

 numbers and per-centage ; those engaged in building and manufacture 

 (taken together) being 10.9 less in per-centage, as well as 626,000 fewer in 

 number, than in 1841. 



It is when taken together that these facts appear so serious as evidence 

 of decadence. It might be well that fewer people, or that a smaller pro- 

 portion of the population, should attempt to obtain a Hving from the land ; 

 and, on the other hand, the abandonment of industries for which the 

 country has no advantages might be no loss, whether accompanied by a 

 general loss of population or not ; and, although a painful process, a general 

 reduction in numbers of population by death and emigration may finally 

 conduce to the benefit of those who remain ; but if all these things happen 

 at once — if a reduced population finds less work to do per man — it is hard 

 to obtain any encouragement from the figures. The best that can be 

 hoped is that some ultimate advantage may lie at the end of a road not yet 

 all trodden. 



Nevertheless, the view is commonly held that in general well-being Ireland 

 has enormously improved since the famine. No evidence of this improve- 

 ment is to be found in the occupation returns, which, on the contrary, point 

 to a demoralisation of industry likely to be the cause, as well as conse- 

 quence, of poverty and waning trade, and certain to be the source of poH- 

 tical discontent. I know that figures may be, and are, drawn from bank 

 deposits and other returns which seem to tell a different story. I shall not 

 attempt to reconcile this conflict of evidence. To do so would be beyond 

 the scope of this paper. I can only state the conclusions to which the 

 census returns point. 



There may be much that is delusive in the rather golden picture of the 

 industrial condition of England and Scotland that has been given ; the 

 tide may have turned since 1881, or even before, and the number of the 

 unemployed or partly employed in each trade, whose lack of employment is 

 not considered in our occupation returns, may make the reality very dif- 

 ferent ; but in the picture of desolation which the Irish figures afford, there 

 seems little room for delusion. When industries decay, those who have 

 been supported by them cling to their employment as long as possible, and 

 what in England may have happened, that the numbers given mclude many 

 who no longer find a living in what they profess to do, has certainly occurred 

 in Ireland. In such a case the facts are assuredly worse than the figures 

 disclose. 



The subject may be taken from another side. It will be seen that the 

 percentage of the Irish population actually returned as engaged in produc- 

 tive industry (or agriculture, fishing, mining, building, and manufacture) has 



