THE IRELAND OF TO-DAY. 23 



probably not to be found among any other West- 

 European people. The bare earthen floor will 

 probably be found in most of them. The Irish 

 standard of life is extraordinarily low, and there- 

 fore all these outward signs of poverty are in a 

 certain sense misleading. The Irishman is fre- 

 quently not so poor as one might conclude from 

 his manner of living. The power of existing 

 under miserable conditions of life, of eking out an 

 existence and of propagating his species on soil 

 where a Central European goat would die of 

 hunger, has doubtless preserved the Irish people 

 during the long period of scorn and oppression. 

 But it is this also which nowadays makes 

 economic progress and development so infinitely 

 difficult. A people which is contented with a 

 little milk and potatoes, with tobacco, a little 

 whiskey and strong but bad tea, does not produce 

 the elements which the modern industrial world 

 requires. 



About one-third of the Irish population, alto- 

 gether 1,384,929, lives in the towns; of these 

 892,463 live in nine boroughs, that is towns 

 which elect members of Parliament. Whilst the 

 total population since 1891 has decreased by 

 some thousands, the population of the towns has 

 grown by 139,670. If we examine the town 

 population with regard to religious conditions, 

 we find that there are in the boroughs 59.5 per 

 cent, of Roman Catholics, and in the remaining 

 towns 62.6 per cent. Thus the proportion of 

 Catholics to Protestants is less favourable in the 



