low rates to such an extent that over twelve million pounds' worth of
imported goods are sold annually in Ireland shows the manner in which
the principles of free trade are applied to that country; and so it has
come to pass that the opening up of the country by railways has often
tended to destroy local industries and to substitute for their products
articles manufactured in England and Continental Europe at a cheaper
cost, carried in either case by English railways, which, in consequence,
reap the benefit of the freight. The carriage per ton paid by eggs to
London, to take one example, is 16s. 8d. from Normandy, 24s. from
Denmark, and no less that 94s. from Galway.

The bearing of the transit question on the agricultural problem is seen
by a consideration of the rates for every form of farm produce, which in
Ireland are fifteen to twenty per cent. of their value. On the Continent
the average is five to six per cent., and in the United States and
Canada it is three per cent. The discouragement of such a tariff to
agricultural enterprise has had a great bearing on the transformation of
plough land into cattle ranches, and the extent to which this has
occurred may be seen from the fact that there are to-day twelve million
acres of pasture to three millions of arable land in the island, and
fertile land, like that of the plains of Meath, is to be seen growing,
not corn for men, but grass for cattle. The success of the country in
stock-raising may very easily be rendered nugatory if the exclusion of
Argentine and Canadian cattle from the English market be ended by the
passing of an Act giving the Board of Agriculture a discretionary power
to maintain or remove the embargo on their importation, according as the
danger of an introduction of cattle disease exists or disappears. The
enormous import trade which is done in Danish butter, Italian cheese,
and even Siberian eggs, shows the commercial possibilities of farm
produce when freights are low. As a tangible example of the