M. de Molinari, a French economist, a Belgian by birth,
who has been travelling in Ireland, has published in the Debate the results of his inquiries into the condition of the people. He thinks the distress real, 200,000 of the small tenants, or a million of people, being, he says, so pauperised, that in bad seasons they are compelled to appeal to the world for charity. He does not believe, however, that there is any quick remedy, or any remedy whatever, except the slow extinction of the little cottiers through economic causes. Home-rule he regards as a dream. No one in England would grant it ; Ireland could only take it after some political cataclysm ; and when she had got it, her wretchedness would be increased. At present, she pays £6,781,000 in Imperial taxes, and Britain £62,893,000, and is, in fact, a source of expense to her two partners. Her taxation would, therefore, be doubled. He has no hope from the Land League, for he thinks the little tenants, even if relieved of rent, would still drown themselves in obliga- tions to other creditors. They have not the training in thrift which the Belgians have had, and they would have to pay compensation of some kind to the State. He considers the Land-League project as senseless as a project to invest the old band-loom weavers with the fee-simple of their looms. M. de Molinari is not hopeless for Ireland, for he believes the small cottiers are slowly dying out ; but he expects nothing from agrarian legislation. It must be noticed that he assumes throughout that the lower Irishman is a thriftless and non- industrious being, thus begging the great question whether that is his essential character or an accident of position. Outside Ireland, he is held to be specially industrious, and often thrifty to meanness.
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