been a decrease in the cost of living. Measuring the cost of living by wholesale prices and taking the Board of Trade index number for 1900 as 100, official estimates put the cost of living in 1878-1887 at 119.5 and in 1898-1907 at 97.8. At the same time the rates of wages have increased.1 An estimate of the course of average real wages in the second half of the nineteenth century is reproduced in the following table:

During the decade 1850-1859, when immigration from the British Isles to the United States reached its maximum, relative to population, and the decade 1880-1889, when it reached its numerical maximum, the real wages averaged from 50 to 55 per cent and from 70 to 84 per cent, respectively, of the wages of 1900. The improvement is sufficient to account for the reduction in the rate of emigration from the United Kingdom.

H. Ireland

Emigration from Ireland to all countries reached its maximum during the decade ended March 31, 1861, and has since declined. The tide rose again during the '80's, in the turbulent years of the Irish Land League agitation, and once more during the past decade, but not as high as the water-mark reached in 1852-1861. The figures are given in Table 67 below.

1 Beveridge, loc. cit., p. 9.

Ibid., quoting: A. L. Bowley, National Progress in Wealth and Trade, p. 33.

TABLE 67.

ANNUAL AVERAGE EMIGRATION FROM IRELAND, MAY 1, 1851,

There are no accurate statistics showing the distribution of Irish emigrants by destination previous to 1876. The subsequent years 1876-1908 for which such statistics are available may be divided with respect to the racial composition of the immigration to the United States into two periods of nearly equal length; previous to 1891 the races of Northern and Western Europe furnished the bulk of the immigrants, whereas during the more recent period the races of Southern and Eastern Europe became the predominant element among them. The figures are presented in Table 67 on page 216.

Two facts are worthy of note in the following comparative table: first, that the decline of emigration from Ireland has affected the movement to other countries, as well as to the United States, and second, that the proportion of Irish emigrants destined to the United States during the period of the great influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe was higher than in 1876-1890, when immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe was negligible.

That the "new immigration" to the United States was not the cause of the decline of Irish emigration is clear from the fact that the decline had set in as early as 1861-1870, at least twenty years before the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe became sufficiently numerous to attract

The enumeration of emigrants from Irish ports did not commence until May 1, 1851.

Census of Ireland, 1901, Part II., p. 168, Table 41. Statistical Abstract of the United Kingdom, No. 56, p. 365.

notice. The conclusion suggested by the statistics of Irish emigration is that there must have been forces at work to reduce the number of Irish seeking a better home than their native country.

The change in the economic condition of the Irish people since the '80's may be summed up in the following words of Mr. Dillon:

The wretched land system was responsible for most of the misery which the poor suffered. Successive land purchases are gradually restoring the worse than homeless tenants to the land, and each family so restored becomes decently prosperous, because for the first time there is offered a chance to make a living. . . . The helpless, hopeless tenants and the evicted families are being made independent. . . . The thousands who have been put in the way of making decent farms and homes have become hopeful and self-reliant instead of despairing. Those families who were struggling against starvation on the rocky hillsides are now cultivating fertile fields.

...

That this is not mere rhetoric a few figures will show.

'Computed from the following sources: Census of Ireland, 1881, Part II., p. 74; 1891, Part II., p. 74; 1901, Part II., p. 74; 1901, Part II., Table 41, p. 168; Statistical Abstract of the United Kingdom, No. 48, p. 255; No. 56, p. 365; Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, Table 9, pp. 76-92.

• Calendar years.

> Total emigration from Ireland for 17 years, from January 1, 1891, to March 31, 1908; immigration to the United States for 17 years from January 1, 1891, to December 31, 1908.

♦ Hugh Sutherland: Ireland Yesterday and To-day (1909), p. 108.

Under the operation of the several purchase acts passed since 1885, more than 214,000 tenants have been enabled to buy their land with the assistance of the government.1 This number is equal to one third of all families enumerated in rural areas at the census of 1901. Under the provisions of the Wyndham Act of 1903, the government is authorized to expend $800,000,000 in loans to tenants at 3^ per cent for the purchase of land, which is to be paid for in 682 years. Furthermore, the rent of the tenants has been substantially reduced by law, to which must be added the creation of a legal interest of a marketable character, together with a chance of further abatements in the future."4 Other legislation has been enacted for the benefit of agricultural laborers. "County authorities are able to borrow government funds for the erection of decent sanitary dwellings, which rent for 1 shilling a week. Nearly 50,000 of these neat cottages have been erected."5

Another factor which has materially contributed to the improvement of the condition of the Irish farmers has been the co-operative movement which dates from 1889. In 1903 there were more than 800 co-operative societies with an aggregate membership of 80,000 farmers. Perhaps, the most important among these societies are the co-operative agricultural banks, which—in the language of Sir Horace Plunkett—"perform the apparent miracle of giving solvency to a community composed almost entirely of insolvent individuals." There are more than 200 of these banks which lend money to farmers at 5 or 6 per cent per annum for agricultural improvements.

The improvement of the condition of the tenants has

1 Ibid., p. 114.

The Census of Ireland,—General Report, Table 49, p. 173.
Sutherland, Inc. cit., p. 114.

4C. F. Bastable: "Some Features of the Economic Movement in Ireland, 1880-1900," Economic Journal, 1901, No. xi., pp. 33, 39. 5 Sutherland, loc. cit., p. 183.

6Horace Plunkett: Ireland in the New Century, p. 192.

7 Ibid., p. 195.

8 Ibid., pp. 192, 197.

affected the labor market; there has been a substantial gain in the real wages of farm laborers.'

The improvement of the living conditions of the Irish people is reflected in the statistics of housing accommodations. The census of Ireland divides all houses into four classes: "In the lowest of the four classes are comprised houses built of mud or perishable material, having only one room and window; in the third a better description of house, varying from one to four rooms and windows; in the second what might be considered a good farmhouse, having from five to nine rooms and windows; and in the first class all houses of a better description than the preceding."2

TABLE 69.

FAMILIES OCCUPYING EACH CLASS OF INHABITED HOUSES IN RURAL AREAS OF IRELAND, 1861-1901.3

1861

8889

29 291 471 90 3.3 33.0 1881 36 309 356 39 4.9 41.7 48.1 5.3 100 1891 40 332 288 20 5.8 48.9 42.4 2.9 100 1901 41 353 230 6.4 55.8 36.4 1.4 100

53.5

10.2

100

While housing conditions in Ireland to-day are still far from ideal, yet they show evidence of very real improvement, compared with the days when emigration from Ireland was at its maximum. The number of one-room huts with one window, built of mud or other material of the same class, decreased since 1861 from 90,000 to 9,000. In 1861, there were but one in three houses that might be considered good farm houses; forty years later about the same proportion fell below that definition.

Bastable, loc. tit., p. 38.

2 Census of Ireland, General Report for 1901, p. II.

3 Computed from the Census of Ireland, General Report, Table 49, p. 173