Agriculture

As a result of natural and historical conditions, the industrial activity of Ireland is largely confined to agriculture. Few countries have so large a percentage of area adaptable for cultivation. Most of the wastelands are in the mountains of Western and Southern Ireland. The lowland region is naturally of a high degree of fertility. The climate is warm and humid, and consequently favorable to the growth of most plants, though the humidity is too great in some regions to allow wheat to ripen properly.

While the country is favored by nature, the Irish system of agriculture does not result in the general welfare of the people, as may be understood in a study of Irish history. One of the features of the English subjugation of Ireland was the confiscation of the greater portion of the land, and the granting of it in large dimensions to English citizens. These in many instances were non-residents, and even when residents they did not always succeed in establishing cordial relations with the tenantry, who were not forgetful of the manner in which the landlord ( as a class) came to his possession.

 During the eighteenth century Ireland was placed under the ban of English commercial and colonial policy, and Irish agricultural products were excluded from the English markets. Later these restrictions were removed, and the high prices of the Napoleonic war period gave a decided impetus to agriculture. During the first part of the nineteenth century there was a general movement toward the division of the farms into small holdings---the result largely of the landlords desire to secure greater political strength through the increase in the number of ballots, and of the extensive practice of subletting indulged in by the middlemen. The potato blight of 1845 precipitated a crisis, and important changes date from this event. In great measure it marked the beginning of the end of the small holding, and the change from tillage to pasturage.

The English law confounded all Irish tenantry with the Fuidhir class, reducing them thus to a servile status. The lands were increasingly held by absentee landlords, who endeavored to obtain the highest possible rents. The large number of middlemen who held land under the lords and acted as their agents made the condition of the peasantry still worse. The need of reformation was seen by all classes, but was not fully realized by English statesmen until the report of Lord Devon's commission, which was appointed in 1843 and sat for two years. This report, backed by the famine of 1846, showed conclusively that the cause of the poverty and suffering in Ireland was not due, as was generally supposed in England, to the shiftlessness of the Irish people, nor yet to their
religion, but to the disastrous relations that existed between landlord and tenant. It recommended that the tenant receive from the landlord compensation for the improvement of his holding."

The repeal of the Corn Laws aided in the relief of the Irish, but later so diminished the value of Irish cereals in the English markets that the landholders in the lowland regions evicted their tenants and turned the lands into pasture-fields. The evicted tenants had to seek a location in the less desirable regions. In Ulster the tenant fared somewhat better; for there custom had long recognized a sort of tenant right, which operated to restrict the privileges of the landlord. The great diminution of the population through emigration had the effect of providing more labor for those who remained, though too often the location of the laborer was remote from the labor. On the whole the condition of the peasantry improved.

But the fact that tenant and landlord were of different race and religion still prevented the development of sympathetic and harmonious relations between the two, and the prevalence of tenantry at will resulted in an aggravating uncertainty of tenure, and prevented the discouraged tenant from making such effort to improve his holding as his interests demanded. Accordingly the land question persisted and became more serious. Relief was sought through the legislative act of 1870, granting compensation for improvements and for the disturbance occasioned by removal, and through the act of 1881, which provided for a fair rent, fixity of tenure, and free sale.

Population

Until after the middle of the eighteenth century the population grew but slowly, being not infrequently checked by the ravages of famine. But toward the end of that century different causes conspired to bring about a rapid increase in the population. Chief of these was probably the universal adaptation of the potato as the main staple of food, the plant giving more returns for the amount of area and labor devoted to it than other plants and being well suited to the needs of the people. Connected with this was the increased impetus given to industry in general during the wars with France, and also the decided tendency which developed at this time toward the division of the land into leaseholds, making the acquisition of a holding easy. Under these influences marriages were entered into early and families were large. Whereas, in 1785 estimates place the population at less than 3,000,000, in 1821 the first official census records the population at 6,800,000, and the census of 1841 showed a population of 8,196,000. Considering that the population was almost wholly rural in composition, it was much in excess of that which a healthy economic and social status would permit.

The sequel was precipitated by the potato blight in 1845. This resulted in a large number of deaths from starvation and disease, but its greatest significance was the starting of the tide of emigration which has continued to depopulate the island to the present time. Prior to the Revolution in the American colonies, the Scotch-Irish element of Northern Ireland had found its way to the colonies in large numbers, but not until the time of the famine did the movement affect the Celtic element. It is estimated that in round numbers there were two million Irish emigrants between 1840 and 1860, and one million in each of the following twenty-year periods, most of whom went to the United States. During the year 1900 the emigrants leaving Ireland numbered 45,300.

While the density of population is no longer excessive, even for a country largely agricultural, a large number are scarcely able to secure a livelihood. Certain regions are known as "congested districts," and a special board has been created to aid the people and improve the conditions in such districts. The explanation lies in the fact that the tenants have been evicted from the more fertile regions (see Agriculture) and have segregated in the less fertile broken regions, especially in the western Province of Connaught, where the small holding of the peasant does not afford sufficient livelihood for the family, and large numbers are annually obliged to leave their homes during the harvest months and supplement their income by labor in the harvest fields of Scotland and England.

Finance

The Imperial British system of finance is applied to Ireland in practically the same way as it is to the other parts of the Kingdom. In the union with Great Britain, Ireland became burdened with a share of the responsibility for a large national debt, which it had had no hand in making. The Irish generally maintain, and many financiers admit that the burden which the Imperial revenue inflicts upon the country is out of proportion to its wealth, and this claim constitutes one of the most serious grievances of the Irish Nationalists.

The history of Ireland since the Union is the story of a continuous struggle for civic and religious freedom, and for separation from Great Britain. From 1845 to 1847 rent-racked Ireland suffered from a terrible famine, due to the failure of the potato crop. Vast numbers emigrated, especially to America, whither they carried with them the hatred toward England, and continued to give effective support to the Irish cause. Many also died, and it is said that in all one and a half million of people had disappeared by 1848.