Professional Class in Ireland.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 20, 15 May 1902, Page 15

Professional Class in Ireland.

A number of interesting facts concerning the professional population of Ireland have been brought out in the evidence before the Royal Commission on University Education in Ireland. There are 1030 persons called to the Bar ; there are 400 practising barristers ; there are 2575 medical practitioners in Ireland : there are, outside Ireland, who have taken medical degrees and licences from Ireland, 3142 ; there are 1637 solicitors in Ireland ; and you have, in addition to that, all their staffs of clerks. From 1841 to 1891, although the population of Ireland has diminished from 8.200,000 to 4,500,000, there was a continual incrense up to 1891 of professional persons— 4o,ooo, 44,000, 45,000, 49,000, 52 000; and, then, in 1881, the proportionate increase in Ireland was greater than in Scot'and, although in Scotland the population has been inert asing and not diminishing. In Ireland in 1891 the statistics apparently were framed upon a new basis, including, in the professional classes, teachers and some other persons who were not under that head before ; but, comparing 1881 and 1891, there were in Ireland, of the professional classes, in 1881, 195.G84 ; aid in 1891, 214 000. In Scotland, in 1891, the professional classes were only 111,000. In Ireland G per cent, of the male population were in profession", while in Scotland only 39 of the male population were in professions, although in Scotland the revenue per head is considerably larger than in Ireland, and there are more than three times as many people in Scotland enjoying incomes over, say, £200 or £300, as they are in Ireland.