Regret is expressed by the committee at their being compelled to state “that a very considerable portion of the population is considered to be out of employment.” The number is, they say, estimated differently—by some at one-fifth, by others at one-fourth; and this want of demand for labour necessarily causes distress among the labouring classes, which combined with the consequences of an altered system of managing land, is said to produce “misery and suffering which no language can possibly describe, and which it is necessary to witness in order fully to estimate.” Yet the price of labour is not considered to have materially fallen. By returns from the county treasurers, the rate of wages appears to average 10_d._ per day on presentment works throughout Ireland, and an extensive contractor thinks that there is a tendency in wages to increase rather than otherwise, notwithstanding that the labourers can now, he says, purchase for 6_s._, what would formerly have cost them 12_s._ These are seemingly contradictions, and there is much more of the same kind of conflicting testimony given in the Report, which can only be accounted for by the fact, that the several parts of Ireland differ widely from each other, and that what is true in one case is not true in another. This indeed appears to be the view taken by the committee, for they say however consolatory the favourable testimony may be, it would lead to a false inference were it to induce a disbelief in the existence of very great distress and misery in Ireland. “The population and the wealth of a country may (they observe) both increase, and increase rapidly; but if the former proceeds in a greater ratio than the latter, an increase of distress among the poor may be concurrent with an augmentation of national wealth.” The state of the labouring classes must, it is considered, mainly depend on the proportion existing between the number of the people and the capital which can be profitably employed in labour. Of the truth of these propositions, there can be no reasonable doubt; neither can it well be doubted, that much of the distress and misery which were seen in Ireland, was owing to a disturbance of this proportion, the population having become greatly in excess of the capital necessary for and applicable to profitable employment. The committee consider that it would be impossible to form a correct estimate of the condition of the poorer classes in Ireland, without first ascertaining the nature of the relations which existed between landlord and tenant,—“the connexion between the inheritor and the occupier of the soil being one which must influence if not control the whole system of society.” Great attention is accordingly bestowed on this part of the subject, and much evidence was taken in reference to it.