which a German might otherwise fill.

During precisely the same period the British Government in Ireland has been bending the wealth and credit of the United Kingdom to objects precisely the reverse. Ireland, owing to the wars and confiscations of the seventeenth century, had come to have a land-owning aristocracy mainly of English descent with a Celtic peasantry holding their farms as yearly tenants. The object of British land-legislation has been to expropriate the landlords, so far as their tenanted land is concerned, and to establish the Irish peasant, as absolute owner of the land he tills. The Irish tenant is now subject only to rents fixed by law; he can at any time sell the interest in his farm, which he has, therefore, a direct interest in improving; he is also assisted by a great scheme of land-purchase to become owner of his land on paying the price by terminable instalments, which are usually some 20 per cent. less than the amount he formerly paid as rent. Under this scheme about two-thirds of the Irish tenantry have already become owners of their farms, while the remainder enjoy a tenure which is almost as easy and secure as ownership itself. It is not surprising, then, that a German economist who has made a special study of this subject should declare that "the Irish tenants have had conditions assured to them more favourable than any other tenantry in the world enjoy"; adding the dry comment that in Ireland the "magic of property" appears to consist in the fact that it is cheaper to acquire it than not.[*] That magic has been worked for Ireland by the British Legislature and by British credit. As in Prussia, compulsory powers (limited by certain conditions and to certain districts) stand behind the schemes of the Government; but the compulsion is exercised not against the Irishman in favour of the English settler, but against the (usually) English landlord in favour of the Irish tenant. The State is now pledged to about £130,000,000 for the furtherance of this scheme, the instalments and sinking fund to the amount of about £5,000,000 a year being paid with exemplary regularity by the farmers who have taken advantage of it.

The Congested Districts Board

In the poorer and more backward regions of the West it has been felt that the above measures are not enough, and a special agency has been constituted with very wide powers to help the Western farmer, and not only the farmer, but the fisherman, the weaver, or anyone pursuing a productive occupation there, to make the most of his resources and to develop his industry in the best possible way. This Board commands a statutory endowment of £231,000 a year. A system of light railways which now covers these remote districts has given new and valuable facilities for the marketing of fish and every kind of produce.

The various Boards and other agencies by which these measures are carried into execution are manned almost exclusively by Irishmen.

The Agricultural Labourer

There is a world of difference between the present lot of the Irish agricultural labourer and his condition in 1883, when reform in this department was first taken in hand. Cottages can now be provided by the Rural District Councils