IRELAND— ITS SOCIAL STATE. 127 



estates that were forfeited in old times, such was not 

 in any way the case. I have seen much land change 

 hands in forty years, and never knew a case in which 

 it was bought for other than honest reasons, such as 

 prevail elsewhere. 



2. The Freeman thinks that I speak too favour- 

 ably of emigration as a remedy for Irish ills. I doubt 

 if any right-minded man who knew the country parts 

 of Ireland from 1835 to 1845 could have any doubt 

 that emigration was then an unmixed blessing to the 

 poor people. They were simply eating one another 

 up alive. I distinctly remember feeling that to give 

 work was the greatest of all charities, and that whilst 

 that state of things existed, it was a pressing duty to 

 spend every shilling one could in that way. Though 

 no effect seemed to be produced on the mass of poverty, 

 still the payment of the small wages then current made 

 all the difference in life to those who were lucky 

 enough to be employed. 



Can any one doubt therefore that the departure of 

 half these poor people to where work at good wages 

 abounded, was a blessing to themselves, and a bless- 

 ing too to the other half who stayed behind — because 

 they got more work at better pay ? This is the very 

 cause of the rise of wages from 3s. and 4s. per week 

 in 1840, to 9s. and 12s. in 1880. 



And when emigration is looked at by the light of 

 the knowledge we have of how Irish emigrants have 

 prospered in America and elsewhere, any objection to 



