Note 81 — Chapter XXI · IRELAND UNDER THE WHEELS.

I cannot think that, in a country where four millions of acres of valuable land are calling out pitifully for labour,—where thousands of families of agricultural habits and of laborious instincts are pleading for work and hungering for the tenancy of deserted farms,—where labour is becoming scarce,—where the population is deteriorating in quality by the continued exportation of its strongest and most promising elements; that, in such a country, and under such circumstances, Englishmen should resign themselves to accept the continued banishment of the flower of the population to a foreign land as the best and only means of meeting this great national difficulty. (E. Hart, Fortnightly Review, 1883.)