The figures of the census tell their own tale. In 1821 the Irish people numbered 6,801,827; in 1831, 7,767,401; in 1841, 8,199,853; but in 1851, 6,514,473. In each previous decade the increase approached a million; in the last there was not only no increase, but a decrease of more than a million and a half. There had been a disastrous famine followed by great emigrations. What happened on Lord Lansdowne’s estate in Kerry is an example of what took place over Ireland generally.[452] That estate comprehended about 100,000 acres, on which before the famine there was a population of 16,000 souls. When the famine came a fourth part of them perished and another fourth emigrated. In course of time, thanks to money sent by relatives from America and advances made by Lord Lansdowne, the emigration continued with such rapidity that only 2000 souls were left on the estate. The famine taught the people how to emigrate, and gave them some idea of the meaning of over-population. The rural districts of Ireland are probably over-peopled now; but there seems reason to believe that a body of tenants, who are little short of peasant proprietors in security of tenure, and who have been forced into a knowledge of the world outside Ireland, will not retain the habits of the old occupiers.[453] Without a change of habits, peasant proprietorships would have done little for France, and will do little for Ireland. This would certainly have been the judgment of Malthus on things as they are now in Ireland, after Catholic Emancipation, Disestablishment, and the Land Act. In his own time he was wise enough to see that the first could not be delayed without injustice and danger. The rapid increase of the Catholic population would soon, he foresaw in 1808,[454] bring the question of Emancipation within the range of “practical politics,” and if the measure had been passed, as he urged, in 1808, instead of twenty years later, the labour of conciliating Ireland might have proved easier, and the political change might have helped to produce that change in the habits of the people which Malthus deemed essential to its permanent prosperity. BOOK II. ECONOMICS. CHAPTER I. THE LANDLORDS. Need of an Economical Digression—The Hegemony of Adam Smith’s School—Cardinal Doctrines of the Malthusian Economy—Scope, Method, Details—Malthus doing Injustice to his Economics—Human Character of his Doctrines—Agricultural Situation in 1794—History of Corn Laws—Malthus on Rent in 1803 and afterwards—_Observations on the Corn Laws_—_Grounds of an Opinion_—_Nature and Progress of Rent_—Ricardo’s Criticisms—Agricultural Improvements—Malthusian Ideal of Commercial Policy—The Wall of Brass—Limits to Commercial Progress.