A UNIVERSAL QUESTION. 25
and elsewhere many men have done within the past few months, what does it mean ? It means that he may have fine clothes, costly food, a grand house luxuriously fur- nished, etc. Now, these things are not the spontaneous fruits of the soil ; neither do they fall from heaven, nor are they cast up by the sea. They are products of labor can be produced only by labor. And hence, if men who do no labor get them, it must necessarily be at the expense of those who do labor.
It may seem as if I were needlessly dwelling upon a truth apparent by mere statement. Yet, simple as this truth is, it is persistently ignored. This is the reason that the true relation and true importance of the question which has come to the front in Ireland are so little realized.
To give an illustration: In his article in the North American Review last year, Mr. Parnell speaks as though the building up of manufactures in Ireland would lessen the competition for land. What justification for such a view is there either in theory or in fact ? Can manufac- turing be carried on without land any more than agricul- ture can be carried on without land ? Is not competition for land measured by price, and, if Ireland were a manu- facturing country, would not the value of her land be greater than now ? Had English clamor for " protection to home industry " not been suffered to secure the stran- gling of Irish industries in their infancy, Ireland might now be more of a manufacturing country with larger population and a greater aggregate production of wealth. But the tribute which the landowners could have taken would likewise have been greater. Put a Glasgow, a Manchester, or a London in one of the Irish agricultural counties, and, where the landlords now take pounds in rent, they would be enabled to demand hundreds and thousands of pounds. And it would necessarily come from the same source the ultimate source of all incomes
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