married members, and which it was thus sought to make attractive to the married. Another rule provided that "no individual should keep any four-footed beast." One wonders how the dogs, eminently individualising animals, reconciled themselves to this arrangement. It should be mentioned that rules, which the association declared to be fixed and unalterable for ever, forbade gaming of any kind, and the sale or even the use of spirituous liquors, or tobacco in any form ; this last, in particular, a stringent regulation which it would, one thinks, sorely task average human nature to observe.

On the marriage of members no restriction was placed. It was provided "that one member wishing to marry another do sign a declaration to that effect one week previous to the marriage taking place, and that immediate preparations be made for the erection, or fitting up, of a suitable dwelling-house for their reception." For this dwelling-house the rent of six-pence per week was to be paid. Any member wishing to marry a non-member had to propose his or her name to the society for election by ballot. If the candidate was rejected, the proposer had to retire from the society, or, I presume, for the alternative is not mentioned, to give up the match. This law was carried out on two occasions during the existence of the society. "These decisions," says Mr. Pare, "acted as a salutary restraint on imprudent associations and marriages, and consequently on population." The restraint, however, was evidently of little value, and would have become almost nugatory with any great extension of the system. The inhabitants of a village seldom look out for wives or husbands beyond their own boundaries; and the same practice would probably have prevailed within the association as soon as the numbers became large enough to give sufficient choice. Within the limits of the society there was every encouragement to marriage. Any couple, we have seen, could have a house provided for them at a very moderate rent, and could rely on having all children supported at the common expense. It is evident that under these circumstances population would have increased with even more than the rapidity usual in Ireland, as Ireland used to be. The table of population in November, 1833, when the experiment closed, stands thus:

It is to be wished that this table were fuller, distinguishing the married and unmarried. We are told, however, that four male members married non-society women, who were admitted by ballot. We have heard also of the admission of one married pair. But I do not find any statement of the marriages that took place between

members. The number of infants, however, had increased from five to sixteen.

Domestic peace was secured by a simple substitute for divorce. The discordant couple separated and took up their quarters with the unmarried. As the children were supported by the society, the chief difficulty of such arrangements was avoided.

It has been said that male labourers received eight-pence, and female five-pence, per day. This was not paid in money, but in what were called "labour notes," which were to be exchanged at the store of the society for such articles as the society produced, that is, for food, fuel, and clothing, as well as for payment for rent. Clothing, however, was produced to only a limited extent. We find in the specimen "Labour Sheet," Appendix D (2), an item of 3s. 2d. for “manufacturing wool into frieze;" but the utilising of the means which the society had at its command in the flax-mill was only in contemplation when the experiment was brought to an end. But such things as would be ordinarily needed were purchased wholesale by the society, and retailed to the members at cost price.

Appendix D exhibits a "Labour Sheet" for the week ending January 14, 1832, which shows the total drafts for labour, that is, the immediate earnings of the members, amounting to £10 4s. 2d., and another table which exhibits the expenditure for the same period, a total of £4 0s. 114d. A balance of £6 3s. 24d. would thus be left for clothing, &c., and for savings. Another table exhibits a balance-sheet of the income and expenditure of an ordinary labourer, which may be thus summarized :—

The balance is here about one-third of the total income; in the first table it is no less than three-fifths, though from this a deduction ought to be made for the extra price paid for skilled labour by the proprietor. Here again we feel the want of fuller and plainer accounts, and especially of a statement sheet of the whole incomings and outgoings of the farm. Incidentally, indeed, we learn that the produce for one year was worth about £1,700; the rent, we know, was, together with the interest paid for capital, £900. Add to this for labour at the rate of £10 4s. 2d. per week, and we

arrive at a

total of about £1,630, of which, however, a large part would remain unexpended in the members' hands. Of one thing, however, we are definitely assured, that is, that the society was solvent, that, when it was wound up, notwithstanding all the disadvantages of a forced sale, all its obligations were discharged, and that, though there does not appear to have been any division of profits arising from the general undertaking, yet individual members had a balance in their hands for unexchanged labour notes amounting in the whole to about £25.

Here, however, a very important question occurs. How did the people live? A writer in the Spectator,* in an article entitled "The Story of Ralahine," says "the potato gave place to better and more varied food." I cannot but think that his enthusiasm here rather obscures his judgment; in fact, that he directly contradicts Mr. Pare's own statements. Appendix D (3) gives a table of weekly expenditure, of which the total has already been quoted.

This, as I find elsewhere, may be taken as an average specimen of the diet of the population. A note informs us that "the butter was principally consumed in Mr. Vandeleur's own house, the society getting some equivalent product;" and we learn elsewhere that those only who had the higher wages "had tea and coffee, and occasionally fresh meat," while the diet of the agricultural labourers was "generally new milk and potatoes." Whatever variety of food they had was of the vegetable kind, and was supplied by an orchard and garden which they cultivated by their common labour. I cannot but think that this is a point of supreme importance. A population accustomed to live on milk at one penny per quart, and potatoes at two pence per stone, commands an easy abundance of food, but a terrible experience, of which the first threatenings had already been heard while Ralahine still existed, has proved this abundance to be most treacherous. The people may have had bread once in a way at a harvest-home, but no progress was made in changing their diet. Nor, indeed, could such a change have stood alone. The safer food is also less easily obtained. A population living on wheat and flesh could not have commanded the abundance of Ralahine.

Yet there were signs of a general advance towards a sounder com*July 31, 1870.

mercial condition. At Ralahine was used the first reaping machine ever introduced into Ireland. It was one of the happy results of the co-operative system, that it was used without exciting any sort of jealousy. The members, knowing that all the labour done was done for their own benefit, could not feel anything but pleasure in any contrivances that might make it more easy and effective. Mr. Pare very rightly suggests that the too common opposition of the labouring classes to the introduction of economizing machinery might be disarmed by making them directly and immediately, as they are indirectly and ultimately, sharers in its profits. At the same time, more than one of the common weaknesses of the national character might be seen to be in process of correction. The Irishman has a passion for sport, which he often indulges in a reckless and improvident fashion. The Ralahine peasantry would not allow the fox-hunt-one of the most fascinating of spectacles-to go across their fields. He is led away by the attractions of a barren and profitless political agitation. At Ralahine the most popular cries of the day became altogether powerless to distract the people from their daily work. He is often bigoted and fanatical. At Ralahine, though it was not without experience of the religious difficulty in the matter of education, the population showed an unusual combination of religious earnestness and toleration. He is not accustomed to regard beggary, to say the least, with disfavour. Ralahine—at least for the last few months of its existence-was shunned as an utterly unprofitable place by the professional mendicant. All of these, doubtless, were desirable results, though they lead one to speculate as to whether there might not be something hard, narrow, and selfish at least in its aspect towards the outer world—in the tone of such a society when it had reached its full development. Of the general benefits, physical and moral, which resulted from the working of the system, the account given is most favourable. In the first place, there was no sickness whatever during the duration of the experiment—a result of unquestionable value, though it looks like the national improvidence that the sick fund was discontinued. As to religion, the people, who were mostly Catholics, were more regular in their attendance than formerly ; " at the same time there was "perfect freedom of religious opinions." As to morals, "the change in this respect was most marked." Drunkenness was banished along with whiskey, and quarrelling almost entirely disappeared with drunkenness. In short, the people, according to the testimony of every observer that visited the spot, were a cheerful, well-fed, well-conducted set, such as could not easily be found in any other part of Ireland. I must not omit to state that the work of education was carried on with energy and success, and that the

adult members possessed, and to a great extent appreciated, opportunities of culture in lectures, concerts, and entertainments of various kinds.

My readers will be curious to know what brought an experiment, apparently so successful, to an end. A catastrophe, it must be answered, very deplorable, but, as so often happens with Irish troubles, with something of the ludicrous about it. A fundamental law of the association, as we have seen, forbad gaming. Unhappily it did not bind the proprietor, who was passionately addicted to this vice. So it came to pass that one night Mr. Vandeleur gambled away Ralahine with all the rest of his property, and disappeared for ever. The creditors stepped in. The association had no lease to protect it another of those legal wrongs, which have made the Irish peasantry hate the name of the law, was perpetrated, and our Utopia disappeared. It had lasted for three years, and, so far, with an unalloyed success. Perhaps it was, as Tacitus says of Agricola, felix opportunitate mortis.

Nothing, I think, could be more unwise than to ignore the economical errors which were committed in the experiment. It is an experiment which is very likely to be repeated more and more frequently as time grows on. There are many, among whom I may be permitted to number myself, who regard the prospect with hope and faith. But the language which some of the advocates of the system employ does not inspire one with confidence. There is not a syllable, either in Mr. Pare's book or in the article founded upon it, of which I have spoken as having appeared in the Spectator, that hints at any of the defects which I have endeavoured to point out. It seems, for instance, to both these writers-at least for all they say to the contrary-a perfectly reasonable thing that the proprietor should have paid for the difference between skilled and unskilled labour. Mr. Pare, again, actually has in his index this item:

66

Overcrowding by improvident marriages not allowed (Law 33;)" the law being that already quoted, which certainly prevented overcrowding, but only by providing every couple that wished to marry with a house. It would be a deplorable thing if well-wishers of a good cause should do it the signal disservice of promoting experiments which are sure to discredit it, should acquiesce in such a manifest absurdity as the affirmation of an equality which has nothing corresponding to it in actual facts, which we cannot better characterise than by the words of the younger Pliny, nihil æqualitate inæqualius, or see nothing to be amended in arrangements which seem to ignore all considerations of prudence. Criticisms of details, on the other hand, must not be mistaken for disapproval of principles and objects. I can see no reason why Ralahine should not