134 REMEDY. 



tion of cultivation, is constantly aggravating the distress 

 by throwing people out of employment, thereby increas- 

 ing the rates, and at the same time decreasing the annual 

 produce of the land, whence alone the rates can be paid. 



The easiest remedy for this disastrous state of things 

 would be the revival of the potato, and its renewed 

 cultivation. To this many landlords cling with despe- 

 rate hope. Things will mend, they say, if we can only 

 "get over" a year or two. With the revival of the 

 potato, con-acre labour will return, farms will be culti- 

 vated, rates reduced, rents paid, and the whole machine 

 be again set in motion. 



The lesson which the whole empire has got, however, 

 has been of too sharp a nature for them silently to 

 acquiesce in a return — even if it were possible — to 

 such a rotten state of things. A new foundation must 

 be laid now for building up hereafter a nation which 

 shall be strong in the vigour of its own self-supporting 

 power, the right arm of England, instead of its bane 

 and its disgrace. 



The only remedy therefore that can be listened to, is 

 a total change in the agricultural management of the 

 country. That can best be effected by the application 

 of capital to the land, capital on the part of both land- 

 lord and tenant. The want of it at present among 

 the landlords is sufficiently shown by the immense 

 number of estates which are already before the new 

 Encumbered Estates Commission, and the generally 

 dilapidated state of the farms in the western counties ; 

 while the impossibility of giving any effectual aid to a 

 pauper tenantry by expending capital in draining and 



