The Catholic Bishops of the West of Ireland have been
press- ing the Government to discourage emigration and to mitigate the distress of the present unfavourable season, by making advances to tenants in the distressed districts of five times the yearly rent of the holding, to be secured on the holding, for the purposes of improvements ; and also by making loans to groups of tenants in these districts, on the joint security of their com- bined holdings. Where these loans are impossible, the Catholic Bishops press the alternative of outdoor relief, and strongly de- precate emigration. Lord Spencer, after considering these sug- gestions of the Catholic Bishops, has replied that while in certain cases the Treasury is prepared to lend to individual tenants of sufficiently good holdings advances for improve- ment on the security of their holdings, he could not sanction advances to groups of tenants on their joint holdings, which could only result in involving them in new difficulties, as well as very complex mutual disputes. In short, the Government are not prepared to bolster up a radically unsound agricultural attempt to make very poor land appear to support a much larger population than it ever can support in comfort and prosperity. The Bishops appear to be exceedingly wroth at what they regard as Lord Spencer's attempt to force the people into emigration ; but it is surely most misleading to talk of forcing the people into emigration, when they only mean by this that the Government refuse to burden artificially an already overburdened soil with fresh obligations which it can never redeem. W hat is wanted is more adequate Government help for emigration from the West of Ireland, but to make that help conditional on the careful removal of whole families to localities where they will be put in the way of learning how best to apply their labour.
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