THE AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 24, 9 October 1885, Page 19

THE AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS.

(The Nation, August 15.)

For severhl years past the Agricultural Statistics issued by the Registrar-General for Ireland have told substantially the same tale. The burden of all the returns has been that laud in this country is going steadily out of cultivation, and that there is no corresponding increase, snch as might have been expected, i n the number of cattle and other like stock in the possession of Irish famers. The returns issued within the last few days for 1884 tell the same stoiy. In the year, as compared with the year before, there was a total decrease as to laod unuer cereal crops of 79,072 acres, and as to land under green ciops of 8,870 acres, while ihe increase of cattle and sheep that marked the twelvemonths is more than balanced by a startling decrease in the number of pi^s. In view of those figures, which speak eloquently of the gradual weeding-out of the 1 smaller farmers 1 , we are not surprised by the fuither information that the number of separate holdings was less by 2,471 than it was in 1883. Here, then, is ample ground foi rejoicing in the camp of Irish rackrenters and exterminators and amongst the Riitish advocates of the policy of scientifically depleting Ireland at once of its wealth an>i of its people. Both classes have for more tha i a quarter of a century been aiming at the results that are iio.vsh*wn by the Registr-r-General, and no doubt the comparative success of theii infamous schemes is consoling them f>>r much that is calculated to cause them grief and anxiety. But if they have cause to rejoice over the facts disclosed in the agricultural statistics the Irish people and their leaders must find in them, by consequence, ground tor the greatest possible alarm, and forredoubled efforts to prevent the disaster which they show to be impending, and which is nothing less than the extinction, by slow but steadily maintained gradations, of the Irish nation. It is becoming more clear than ever that if Ireland does not succeed in breaking the accursed Unioa of 1800 it will be destroyed by it in a shortgr time than probably many are inclined to imagine.