The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, MAY 25, 1920. PROSPERITY AND POLITICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 124, 25 May 1920, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, MAY 25, 1920. PROSPERITY AND POLITICS.

For the wise Met tacit* OMUtone*. tor the wrong Met need* reeUtamee, tor the future in the dUtanca. And the good that tee cm 4*-

One might gather from the daily new: from Ireland .that the chief industry o. the country was agitation, outrage and rebellion, but yesterday a message came to remind us that in the midst of the alarums and excursions that afflict the country the process of producing goods and making money goes on very successfully. Everybody who has taken an interest in Ireland 'knows that the country has been remarkably prosperous of late years. Private advices, as well as newspaper and magazine articles, tell the same story, that in epite of turmoil and terrorism Ireland was never so well off materially as she is to-day. Yesterday's message referred to only part of the record of prosperity. Exports, it said, had advanced from £24,000,000 in 1908 to £64,000,000 in 1919. But this can refer to only a portion exports, and probably it is confined to foodstuffs. In 1913, the year before the war, the total exports of Ireland amounted to £73,877,000, and by 1917 they had advanced to £134,662,000. In the same period the imports had increased from £74,467,000 to £120,000,000. These {figures, of course, represent in a large measure increased values, but nevertheless they are a 'barometer of Ireland's progress. There is a tremendous difference between the Ireland of to-day and the Ireland of the terrible famine times, when . there were Englishmen who thought that extensive emigration was the only remedy for Ireland's sufferings. In the last few years, fly the way, emigration, -which cost Ireland over four million people in 07 years, has sunk to almost nothing. The war was largely responsible for this, -but the internal absorption of the usual annual loss by emigration does not eeem to have done the country any harm. This change in Ireland has been due partly, to the work of the British Government in liberalising the land laws, and partly to the enterprise and devotion of Irishmen, foremost among whom has been Sir Horace Plunkett, the founder voL ihtu co-operative movement in agriculture. Founded in 1894, the Iri&li Agricultural Organisation Society had by 1913 985 'branches, 104,00(T members, and a turnover of £3,333,000. It was not until that year that the British Government. agreed to BUbeidiie the society's admirable work. The assistance given by the Government to Irish farmers to own iheir Jand was framed on lines perhaps more liberal than anything of the kind in the Empire. "It is the plain, incontrovertible fact," said a distinguished Home Ruler during the war, "that .there is nothing on earth, or at least nothing within the scope of the Imperial Government, to prevent any Irishman from subsisting in his native land and garnering the full reward of his labours. Some classes of Irishmen are better protected in this respect than any of the corresponding classes in Great Britain."

. But greatly as Ireland has progressed economically, there is still immense room for advancement, and itis not likely that Ireland will make that advance while the country is in the present state of unrest. It is one of the arguments for Irish self-gbvernment that an Irish Government would do much more for Irish industries than is done under the present system of control. The English Labour party's recent report on Irish affairs says that the Irish people are not so prosperous as they ought to he; "Nationalist Ireland under alien domination is in a state of economic arrest." Grievances brought under their notice included neglect of housing, failure to develop mines and water power, neglect of canals, water-transport and harbours, and the absence of State encouragement of new industries. According to these investigators "the neglect of Irish industry under the Union adds enormously to the difficulties and dangers of the political situation." There will be difference of opinion as to the amount of economic progress Ireland would achieve under Home Rule, but there can be little doubt that the argument of the Labour party is one that appeals to many Irishmen. Sinn Fein used to be a town movement, but there are signs that it has captured many of the farmers. It has been said that the completion of the British Government's land legislation weakened the hold of the Nationalist party on the farmers by depriving them of their grievances, and that eventually this class succumbed to the propaganda of Sinn Fein. One often hears it said that Ireland should be contented because it is prosperous. There is this much in the contention — that Irish extremists are careful not to acknowledge what Britain ha» done to promote prosperity, as an economic measure and an act of justice;.when Casement said in his speech from the dock that Irishmen "must beg with bated breath for leave to subsist in their own land," he talked nonsense. -But Englishmen must admit that true nationalism lives on something more than prosperity. They would be indignant if they were told that they loved England merely because her exports were worth so many millions.