population living by
agriculture can be much increased beyond this number. Even if all the
land in Ireland were available for re-distribution in equal shares, the
higher standard of comfort to which it is essential that the condition
of our people should be raised would forbid the existence of much more
than half a million peasant proprietors.[8] Hence the evergreen query,
'What shall we do with our boys?' remains to be answered; for while the
abolition of dual ownership will enable the present generation to bring
up their children according to a higher standard of living, the change
will not of itself provide a career for the children when they have been
brought up. The next generation will have to face this problem:--the
average farm can support only one of the children and his family, what
is to become of the others? The law forbids sub-division for two
generations, and after that, _ex hypothesi_, the then prevailing
conditions of life will also prevent such partition. A few of the next
generation may become agricultural labourers, but this involves
descending to the lowest standard of living of to-day, and in any case
the demand for agricultural labourers is not capable of much extension
in a country of small peasant proprietors.

Against this view I know it is pointed out that in the earlier part of
the nineteenth century the agricultural population of Ireland was as
large as is the total population of to-day; but we know the sequel.
Instances are also cited of peasant proprietaries in foreign countries
which maintain a high standard of living upon small, sometimes
diminutive, and highly-rented holdings. We must remember, however, that
in these foreign countries State intervention has undoubtedly done much
to render possible a prosperous peasant proprietary by, for example, the
dissemination of useful information, admirable systems of technical
education in agriculture, cheap and expeditious transport, and even
State attention to the distribution of agricultural produce in distant
markets. Again, in many of these countries rural life is balanced by a
highly industrial town life, as, for instance, in the case of Belgium;
or is itself highly industrialised by the existence of rural industries,
as in the case of Switzerland; while in one notable instance--that of
Wuerttemberg--both these conditions prevail.

The true lesson to be drawn from these foreign analogies is that not by
agriculture alone is Ireland to be sav