But such a cursory treatment, in the early chapters, of this and of other equally important aspects of the Irish situation is necessitated by the plan I have adopted.

I am attempting to give in the first part of the book a philosophic insight into the chief Irish problems, and then, in the second part of the book, to present the facts which appear to me to illustrate these problems in process of solution.
[8] The best expert agricultural opinion tells me that under present conditions a family cannot live in any decent standard of comfort--such as I hope to see prevail in Ireland--on less than 30 acres of Irish land, taking the bad land with the good.
[9] It is, of course, unnecessary for me to dwell upon the part played by the home in the standard of living, especially amongst a rural community.

But it may not be irrelevant to note that M.Desmolins, who, in his remarkable book, _A quoi tient la superiorite des Anglo-saxons_?
hands over the future of civilisation to the Anglo-Saxons, ascribes to the English rural home much of the success of the race.
[10] Speed's Chronicle, quoted in _Calendar of State Papers, Ireland,_ 1611-14, p.

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