The Auckland Star : WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 1923. IRELAND'S INDUSTRIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 74, 27 March 1923, Page 4

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

TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 1923. IRELAND'S INDUSTRIES.

For the cause thai lacks aeeistanot, for the urrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do,

The forecast of the fiscal policy of the Irish Free State Government that appears in our cable news to-day is brief and very incomplete. We are told that the Government proposes to impose a duty of 33 1-3 per cent on British goods, which may be reduced to 22 1-5 through the provisions of Imperial preference, but a list of "principal dutiable articles" k appended which throws little light on the extent to which the Government means to protect Irish industry. Tobacco, spirits, perfumery, tea, and motor cars are goods whi;h the Government would be expected to tax for revenue purposes. The "Daily Telegraph's" forecast, however, draws attention to an aspect of the Irish question which has not received sufficient attention, that is, the determination of the Irish to control their own fiscal system. This determination was one of the main reasons why nothing short of Dominion status would satisfy Ireland. England, it was argued, had for too long denied Irish industry the freedom to control its own destinies to which it was entitled.

There is all too much ground for this charge. There are some very dark chapters in England's industrial treatment of Ireland, chapters which no decent Englishman can read without a deep feeling of shame. Irtish industries ■were deliberately throttled for the benefit of English trade. The late Lord Dufferin wrote that "one by one each of our nascent industries was cither strangled in its birth or handed over gagged and bound to the jealous custody of the rival interest in England.' , At the end of the seventeenth century the woollen industry was ruinfed by a prohibition placed upon exportation to any country but England, from which goods were virtually excluded by the tariff. G rattan's Parliament did something to stimulate industry, but it had only twenty years in which to work, for at the beginning of the nineteenth century Ireland, with the repeal of the L'nion, was absorbed into the British system. Union with Britain, saya a historian, diecuseing the industrial history of Ireland in the oentury, necessitated the application of the new free trade principles to Ireland "jiiEt at the time when Irish industries should have met with encouragement and protection." "The net result of the first fifty years of the nineteenth century was that Ireland had abandoned all pretence of being an industrial country," says another writer, *'and relied for its support on agriculture to an almost greater degree than it had done at any previous period, even than in the. middle of the eighteenth century." It is also charged asainst Britain that as late a» the

twentieth century, and even with a Liberal Government in power, tjhe. deliberate policy of London was to prevent the development of Irish industry. The late Mr. Arthur Griffith quoted Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, manager of the great ammunition firm of Kynoch's, and brother of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, as saying in 1007 that "it was a definite part of English policy to prevent any serious industrial or commercial development in Ireland."

We should like to near the other side of this modern case, for we find it difficult to believe that the persecution has been so long and so relentless as is alleged. These charges, whether they are substantiated or not, help one to realise the strength of the Irish determination to have control of native industries, but even if one concedes the truth of all of them, does this English hostility account for everything? Why is it that Ulster, working under the same fiscal system as the South, has been more successful industrially? It is an Irish priest-author who asks why the factories of Belfast have not been rivalled on the banks of a Southern river. Something must be attributed to superior industrial capacity on the part of the Ulster people, and the question is to what extent will fiscal protection balance that superiority. It is argued that the Southern Irishman is naturally not well fitted to succeed in manufacturing, that the modern factory system is foreign to his concept of life. This may be, but the movement that has won Dominion status for Ireland means to try to develop secondary industries. Politically the policy of protection may have the important result of hastening the union of Ulster with the Free State. A long straggling Customs frontier will be difficult to maintain, and to a large extent Ulster looks to the rest of Ireland for its prosperity.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SPIRIT. I i < i The fact that 750,000 people watched I s the Oxford and Cambridge boat race j < shows the extraordinary interest taken ' ] in athletic contests in England, and it j is not to be wondered at that this in- , terest is reflected in the attitude of • the large public schools towards games, j A good cricketer, a good footballer, or, , where a river is available, a good oar, is the hero of the average schoolboy v and the average undergraduate. The c boy who has no aptitude for games is subjected to -the contempt of his com- ' panions and in many cases to a species f of bullying that often leads to disas- 1 trous results. At Christ's Hospital ' recently a small boy of fourteen, acting i ( as a. linesman in a football game, was accused of being careless and wilfully t favouring his own side. lie was accord- : ; ingly kicked by a senior boy and by j 1 another boy, and as a result of this , he drove a jack-knife into his heart and , , died, asserting to the boy who had j i kicked him: "You have made mc do ' it. You have killed me.' . The extra- i ' ordinary part of this story lies in the j . sequel. Masters, boys, and even the , . parents of the dead lad combined to , ' exonerate from all blame, the two who | had administered the kicks. The head-; master said that "it was a good thing to do," that a mild kick was not excessive punishment for acting badly as ' a linesman, and that, a little roughness: was good for small boys of original; ideas. The original ideas were an | interest in wireless telegraphy, scientific appliances, and such-like hobbies, instead of games. Thus everyone was exonerated, if not congratulated, over the incident. Those who know the English public schools from the inside will not be surprised at the general effort to whitewash the whole affair. : It is not often that a boy is bullied to death, but frequently a boy's life is made unendurable if he has original ideas, especially if these ideas lead him to show no interest in the athletic life of the school. One consequence of thia is to bo seen in the recent scholarship examinations at Cambridge. The bulk of these scholarships have gone to the Government secondary schools or the large, grammar schools of the big towns. At one time the Trinity scholarships wore regarded as public school monopolies. Trinity was the most expensive college, and prided itself on the fact that it did not cater for "lesser breeds j without the Law." It had a special boat crew for Eton and Westminster boys, and set its scholarship papers to meet the needs of the more expensive and exclusive schools. Yet with all these advantages in their favour the public schools failed for the first time to carry off those much coveted distinr- ; tions, and had the chagrin of seeing them go to the despised Government institutions. The English public school ' has much to be said in its favour, it ! has produced a type, and inculcated a. j spirit. The public school boy learns to i play the game, to be unswervingly i loyal, to put the interests of his school, bis university, his regiment, his profession, before his own. This spirit has produced proat statesmen and great Empire-builders. No one would deny it its place. But this is not all. Boys must bo fitted for the work of life, and the extravagant worship of athletics to the detriment of learning cannot but affect these institutions adversely I in many ways. The University hoat ! contest shows the public school spirit at its best—true sportsmanship, dogjrofl determination, freedom from any suspicion of commercialism—and tbe huge : crowds assembled to witness it form an eloquent tribute to the hold it. has on our race. But this spirit must be carried into other things if the schools are to endure and give the nation of their best in every walk of life.