What were the consequences for the Irish labourers left behind and freed
 from the surplus population? That the relative surplus population is today as
 great as before 1846; that wages are just as low, that the oppression of the
 labourers has increased, that misery is forcing the country towards a new
 crisis. The facts are simple. The revolution in agriculture
 has kept pace with emigration. The production of relative surplus population
 has more than kept pace with the absolute depopulation. A glance at table C.
 shows that the change of arable to pasture land must work yet more acutely in
 Ireland than in England. In England the cultivation of green crops increases
 with the breeding of cattle; in Ireland, it decreases. Whilst a large number of
 acres, that were formerly tilled, lie idle or are turned permanently into
 grass-land, a great part of the waste land and peat bogs that were unused
 formerly, become of service for the extension of cattle-breeding. The smaller
 and medium farmers — I reckon among these all who do not cultivate more
 than 100 acres — still make up about 8/10ths of the whole number. [126] They are one after the other, and
 with a degree of force unknown before, crushed by the competition of an
 agriculture managed by capital, and therefore they continually furnish new
 recruits to the class of wage labourers. The one great industry of Ireland,
 linen-manufacture, requires relatively few adult men and only employs
 altogether, in spite of its expansion since the price of cotton rose in
 1861-1866, a comparatively insignificant part of the population. Like all other
 great modern industries, it constantly produces, by incessant fluctuations, a
 relative surplus population within its own sphere, even with an absolute
 increase in the mass of human beings absorbed by it. The misery of the
 agricultural population forms the pedestal for gigantic shirt-factories, whose
 armies of labourers are, for the most part, scattered over the country. Here,
 we encounter again the system described above of domestic industry, which in
 underpayment and overwork, possesses its own systematic means for creating
 supernumerary labourers. Finally, although the depopulation has not such
 destructive consequences as would result in a country with fully developed
 capitalistic production, it does not go on without constant 660reaction
 upon the home-market. The gap which emigration causes here, limits not only the
 local demand for labour, but also the incomes of small shopkeepers, artisans,
 tradespeople generally. Hence the diminution in incomes between £60 and £100 in
 Table E.