3311. “You have mentioned that oppression contributes to produce those habits to which you have alluded; in what way do you imagine in Ireland there is oppression?”—“I think that the government of Ireland has, upon the whole, been very unfavourable to habits of that kind; it has tended to degrade the general mass of the people, and consequently to prevent them from looking forward and acquiring habits of prudence.” 3312. “Is it your opinion that the minds of the people may be so influenced by the circumstances under which they live, in regard to civil society, that it may contribute very much to counteract that particular habit which leads to the rapid increase of population?”—“I think so.” 3313. “What circumstances in your opinion contribute to produce a taste for comfort and cleanliness among a people?”—“Civil and political liberty and education.”[433] Then the subject of one acre holdings is introduced, and Malthus is asked:— 3317. “What effect would any change of the moral or religious state of the government of that country produce upon persons occupying such possessions?”—“It could not produce any immediate effect if that system were continued; with that system of occupancy there must always be an excessive redundancy of people, because, from the nature of tolerably good land, it will always produce more than can be employed upon it, and the consequence must be that there will be a great number of people not employed.” 3318. “Is, therefore, not the first step towards improvement in Ireland necessarily to be accomplished by an alteration of the present state of the occupancy of the land?” This was a leading question, but Malthus would not be led. He replied, “I think that such an alteration is of the greatest possible importance, but that the other (the change in the government) should accompany it; it would not have the same force without.” In his answers to later questions he gave his view at greater length on the causes of the difference between English and Irish character. Answ. to qu. 3411. “At the time of the introduction of the potato into Ireland the Irish people were in a very low and degraded state, and the increased quantity of food was only applied to increase the population. But when our [English] wages of labour in wheat were high in the early part of the last century, it did not appear that they were employed merely in the maintenance of more families, but in improving the condition of the people in their general mode of living.”[434] 3413. “You attribute the difference of the character of the people to the difference of food?”—“In a great measure.” 3414. “What circumstance determines the difference of food in the two countries?”—“The circumstances are partly physical and partly moral.[435] It will depend in a certain degree upon the soil and climate whether the people live on maize, wheat, oats, potatoes, or meat.”[436]