degradation; for if the Irish people were not elevated, the English
working classes must be brought down to their level. The facility of
travelling afforded by railways and steam-boats caused such constant
intercourse between England and Ireland, that Irish ignorance,
beggary, and disease, with all their contagion, physical and moral,
would be found intermingling with the British population. It would be
impossible to prevent the half-starved Irish peasantry from crossing
the Channel, and seeking employment, even at low wages, and forming a
pestiferous Irish quarter in every town and city. The question, then,
was felt to be one whose settlement would brook no further delay.

It was found that the potato was almost the only food of the Irish
millions, and that it formed their chief means of obtaining the other
necessaries of life. A large portion of this crop was grown under the
system, to which the poorest of the peasantry were obliged to have
recourse, notwithstanding the minute subdivision of land. There were
in 1841, 691,000 farms in Ireland exceeding one acre in extent.
Nearly one half of these were under five acres each. The number
of proprietors in fee was estimated at 8,000--a smaller number, in
proportion to the extent of territory, than in any other country of
Western Europe except Spain. In Connaught, several proprietors had
100,000 acres each, the proportion of small farms being greater there
than in the rest of Ireland. The total number of farms in the province
was 155,842, and of these 100,254 consisted of from one to five acres.
If all the proprietors were resident among their tenantry, and were
in a position to encourage their industry and care for their welfare,
matters would not have been so bad; but most of the large landowners
were absentees. It frequently happened that the large estates
were held in strict limitation, and they were nearly all heavily
encumbered. The owners preferred living in England or on the