The economical question is whether Ireland can support her present population. Patriotic eloquence will not change her skies, or render it otherwise than cruel to induce her people to stay in a land in which they cannot make their bread. Instances there may be of barren soil made by the loving industry of the small owner fruitful and capable of supporting a large population; but the industry of the small owner, though it can improve the soil, cannot alter the skies. What is to be desired is a special report, calm and expert, upon this subject. Is Ireland generally capable of being turned with advantage into an arable country? Can wheat or grain of any kind be profitably raised there in face of the competition of the great grain-growing countries such as that now opened, and bidding fair to be opened over a much larger area, in the Canadian Northwest? The small farmer to live must have something to sell. Is there reason to look in any other direction than farming for a speedy extension of Irish industries such as would provide bread sufficient for the population? Is the water-power of Ireland, now that electricity has been developed, likely to do what has been done for England by coal? Is the shipping trade, for which the Irishman has had little opportunity of showing a turn, likely to increase? These are questions which it is for economists, not for politicians or patriotic orators, to decide. It is said that there are tracts of land in Ireland still unoccupied and fit for occupation. If there are, the survey will show the fact. Land purchase by government subvention is a policy hardly to be pursued unless it is certain that its results will not presently be reversed by nature. The worst part of emigration is that it carries away the pith and sinews of a nation, taking the strong and leaving the weak, the aged, and unsupported women. It is a pleasant proof, already noticed, of the warmth of the Irish heart that there has been less of solitary and more of family emigration in their case than in those of some other emigrating races. After all, how has the earth been peopled, how have all the nations been formed but by migration?