For official figures on all these matters see Parliamentary Papers No. 215 and No. 216 of Session 1908. Hansard, March 26, 1908.

P. 354. EMIGRATION.-The decline in the figures of Emigration from 1901 to 1905 has not been maintained. The number of emigrants from Ireland in 1905 was 31,172; in 1906, 35,918; and in 1907, 39,562. In 1907 Ulster was the heaviest loser by emigration of the four Provinces. The figures were :-Ulster, 14,513; Munster, 11,288; Connaught, 7,570; and Leinster, 5,711. The estimated population of Ireland on June 30, 1907, was 4,378,568. The following table shows the population of Ireland and Scotland in 1841 and 1901 respectively :

P. 362. Poor RELIEF.-The following table shows the number of persons who received Poor Relief, indoor or outdoor, from 1903 to 1906 :-

A complete re-organisation of the Poor Law System is promised before 1911 as a complement of the Old Age Pensions Act of the present year.

P. 379 et seq. UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.-These pages are of merely historical interest, since the passage of the Irish Universities Act in August of the present year (1908). This Act provides for the establishment of two new Universities, with their centres respectively at Dublin and Belfast. The Belfast University is to have but one constituent college, the old Queen's

College, re-modelled and with an increased endowment. The University with its centre at Dublin is to be a federal institution, consisting of a new Metropolitan College to be established in Dublin, with the Queen's Colleges of Cork and Galway, also remodelled and with increased endowments. Both Universities are to be free from religious tests. The scheme, while criticised on the ground of insufficient endowment and on other points, has been accepted by the leaders of Irish opinion as giving Ireland freedom to develop her intellectual resources, and to create a living centre of national culture. The scheme is, in its main lines, based on a proposal put forward some three years ago by Mr. John Dillon, M.P.

P. 381. ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND. In 1906, 3,733 students presented themselves for the Examinations of the Royal University.

P. 404. THE GAELIC LEAGUE.-In the present year (1908) the Gaelic League has 890 Branches. Its annual income is about £6,000. The average membership of each Branch is about 70. There are 180,384 children learning Irish in the Primary Schools, and 3,898 in the Secondary Schools. The literary output in Modern Irish is so large that it is not possible here to give even a brief Bibliography.

P. 445. POLITICIANS AND CO-OPERATION-It is only right to point out that several Nationalist Members of Parliament are members of one or other of the elective Committees and Boards which form part of the mechanism of the Department of Agriculture; and that certain of them, such as Mr. J. P. Boland, M.P., and Mr. Hugh Law, M.P., have rendered valuable service to the cooperative movement.

P. 447. THE Co-Operative MOVEMENT AS compared with the figures in the text there were last year (1907) 953 Co-Operative Associations in Ireland, with a membership of 95,000,representing a population of 450,000, or one-tenth of the whole population of Ireland.

Co-operative dairies bave increased from 328 to 356; Rural Banks from 200 with 11,194 members, to 270 with 16,000 members; Agricultural Societies from 131 to 172 (these Societies do not now attend to the breeding of cattle); and Societies of other kinds from 116 to 131. The trade turnover of the societies now amounts to over two millions-and-a-half sterling and is steadily increasing.

P. 461. THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION.-On this subject consult Catholicity and Progress in Ireland, by Very Rev. M. O'Riordan, D.D., now President of the Irish College, Rome (London and St. Louis, Mo, 1905), a reprint of a series of powerful articles from The Leader, Dublin.

P. 520. DEVOLUTION.-The Irish Councils' Bill of the present Liberal Government was summarily and contemptuously rejected by the unanimous vote of the Irish National Convention of May, 1907.

INDEX