432 The Prize System as applied to Small Farmers in Ireland. 
£ s. d. 
Brought forward 40 1G 0 
1 calf sold 060 
Increased value of heifer 4 00 
Value of potatoes consumed l>v the family, say 4 tons, 
at 31 10s ." 14 0 0 
Earnings elsewhere as a labourer GOO 
Go 2 0 
It may be said that this man would have been happier as a 
mechanic or as a well-paid labourer in England than he has 
been in this holding- of bogland. As this paper is intended to 
describe the effects of an attempt made to improve the condition 
of the small farmers who now occupy so large a portion of the 
land of Ireland, I feel that my duty is to narrate facts rather 
than discuss theories. I cannot, however, forbear remarking 
that a small farm, always assuming it is not too small, provides 
for sickness and old age in a very different way from the savings 
of a mechanic or labourer. 
It will also be said, perhaps, that it might be better for this 
man's offspring if he and his wife had settled on a tract of free 
ground in some foreign land. With this aspect of his case I am 
not concerned. He has chosen to settle where he now lives. 
Lord Spencer, evidently regarding him as an existing unit in 
society, would wish to make him more useful to himself and to 
society. The man previously barely possessed the necessaries of 
subsistence. He is now in a fair way of enjoying for the future 
the necessary comforts of life according to the standard of his 
class. The improvements he has made have increased his in- 
come ; and they have not only raised him in the estimation of 
his neighbours, but added to his self-respect. His landlord has 
a pecuniary interest in his improved condition, arising out of 
the law of progress, to which attention has been already directed, 
and he can derive a higher satisfaction from every case of the 
kind, owing to the improvement in the aspect of society towards 
which it tends. It is needless to say that the progress of agri- 
culture among this and every other class benefits the trading 
and commercial classes of society. It increases the demand for 
seeds, manures, groceries, and all the wants of life. Every im- 
provement in the circumstances of Thomas Conway, and of every 
man who produces wealth, increases even the receipts of Her 
Majesty's Treasury, by increasing the consumption of articles on 
which duties are paid. 
The example of Conway, the way he was dealt with by the 
O'Conor Don, M.P., and the general feeling created in the 
district, has had a beneficial effect on his neighbour, Dominick 
Finan, to whose management in 1873 it was deemed unneces- 
sary to attach any marks ; but who obtained a total of 405 marks 
