have no means of sustenance but the land, the conditions on which the land can be occupied, and support derived from it, are all in all. Now, under an apparent resemblance, those conditions are radically different in Ireland and in England. In England the land is rented and cultivated by capitalist farmers; in Ireland, except in the grazing districts, principally by manual labourers, or small farmers in nearly the same condition in life. The multitude of other differences which flow from this one difference, it would be too prolix to detail. But (what is still more important), in Ireland, where the well-being of the whole population depends on the terms on which they are permitted to occupy the land, those terms are the very worst in Europe. There are many other countries in which the land is owned principally in large masses, and farmed in great part by manual labourers. But I doubt if there be now any other part of Europe where, as a general rule, these farm-labourers are entirely without a permanent interest in the soil. The serfs certainly were not; they could not be turned out of their holdings. The métayers in France, before the Revolution, could; and their wretchedness, accordingly, was the bye -word of Europe. There are still métayers in France, but those of them who have not, as many have, other land of their own in full property, are still the disturbing element of rural society. The departments which returned Socialist deputies to the Assemblies of 1848 and 1849 were chiefly those in which métayerism still lingered. The métayers of Italy are, by a custom, as binding as law, irremovable so long as they fulfil their contract. The Prussian peasants, even before the beneficent enfran-
