[140] "It may be doubted, considering the circumstances under which most Irish landlords acquired their estates, the difference between their religious tenets and those of their tenants, the peculiar tenures under which the latter hold their lands, and the political condition of the country, whether their residence would have been of any considerable advantage. * * * The question really at issue refers merely to the spending of revenue, and has nothing to do with the improvement of estates; and notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary, I am not yet convinced that absenteeism is, in this respect, at all injurious."—Principles, 157.
[141] Treatises and Essays on Subjects connected with Economical Policy.
[142] Chapman, Commerce of India.
[143] During all this time there was a large increase in the import of food from Ireland; and this, of course, constituted a portion of domestic produce exported in the shape of manufactures, the whole proceeds of which were to be retained at home. Since 1846, the change in that country has been so great that she is now a large importer of foreign grain. The official return for 1849 shows a diminution in the quantity raised, as compared with 1844, of no less than 9,304,607 quarters; and instead of sending to England, as she had been accustomed to do, more than three millions of quarters, she was an importer in that year and the following one of more than a million. This deficiency had to be made up from abroad, and thus was the United Kingdom transformed from the position of seller of four or five millions of quarters—say about 40 millions of our bushels—of which it retained the whole proceeds, to that of the mere shopkeeper, who retains only the profit on the same quantity. A similar state of things might be shown in regard to many of the other articles of produce above enumerated.
[144] in 1834, Mr. McCulloch estimated the produce of the land of great Britain at 146 millions, but at that time wheat was calculated at 50s. A quarter, or almost one-half more than the average of the last two or three years. Other and larger calculations may readily be found; but it would be difficult to determine what becomes of the product if it be not found in rent, farmers' profits, or labourers' wages.
[145] By reference to the report of the Assistant Commissioner, charged with the inquiry into the condition of women and children employed in agriculture, it will be seen that a change of clothes seems to be out of the question. The upper parts of the under-clothes of women at work, even their stays, quickly become wet with perspiration, while the lower parts cannot escape getting equally wet in nearly every kind of work in which they are employed, except in the driest weather. It not unfrequently happens that a woman, on returning from work, is obliged to go to bed for an hour or two to allow her clothes to be dried. It is also by no means uncommon for her, if she does not do this, to put them on again the next morning nearly as wet as when she took them off.
[146] London Labour and London Poor.
[147] The returns of imports into Great Britain are given according to an official value, established more than a century since, and thus the sum of the values is an exact measure of the quantities imported.
[148] The reader will remark that of all the machinery of England but a small portion is required for the forced foreign trade that is thus produced.
[149] The whole appropriation for the education of ten millions of people in Western India is stated, in recent memorial from Bombay, to be only £12,500, or $60,000, being six cents for every ten persons.