68 



ECONOMIC DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION. 



We may compare these with the parallel figures for Scotland, which are as 

 follows : — 



The increase in Ireland, though large, does not (if the Army and Navy be 

 omitted) bring the per-centage for 1881 so high as that of Scotland, or by 

 any means so high as in England, and, except for the item of Police and 

 Prisons, there is not much to be objected to. 



It is otherwise with the increases under all the other heads. It is impos- 

 sible to account satisfactorily for the increase which is to be found in the 

 numbers as well as per-centage of the dealers — those who live by buying 

 and selling. This increase cannot be traced to any improved system of 

 distribution, nor can we account for it, as we may in England and Scotland, 

 by the fact that increasing production or greater wealth increase the volume 

 to be distributed, and that our foreign trade has made of Great Britain a 

 shop to which all the world come to buy. It seems evident that the multi- 

 plying of this class in Ireland can only be taken as a sign of want of more 

 useful employment. 



In Industrial Service the commercial portion of the class was 12,000 in 

 1 841, and 16,000 in 188 1 ; an increase which, like that in Transport, may be 

 satisfactory, as pointing to improvement of system, but this is not so with the 

 main increase in this class — that of general labourers, from 31,000 in 1841, 

 to 144,000 in i88l 



These labourers (who no doubt to some extent belong to the agricultural 

 class) can hardly be added to the ranks of productive industry. They take 

 their origin from the destitute class who appear in the return of 1851 (after 

 the faYnine) as " indefinite," and who, dropping out of this unnamed position, 

 appear in 1861, and continue in 1871 and 1881, as "general labourers." It 

 IS true that this class is, relatively, almost as considerable in England and 

 Scotland as in Ireland, but there is a great difference in the fact that in the 

 former countries they have always been a numerous order connected with 



