TRANSFORMED BY ROADS

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 200, 24 August 1929, Page 23

TRANSFORMED BY ROADS

CONDITIONS IN IRELAND.

£5,000,000 SPENT IN SIX YEARS.

BETTER LIVING AND MORE COMFORTS.

(By SIR PERCIVAL PHILLIPS.)

Peasant life in Southern Ireland is undergoing a remarkable transformation. Remote farms and hamlets have suddenly been brought into closer contact with the outside world. This social and economic revolution—for it is nothing less —is the result of good roads and a wide network of motor transport.

It has come about within the last two years. Omnibuses now tap districts which were formerly miles from the nearest railway. Cottagers can motor to the nearest market town as easily as they feed the pigs. A journey which was once a costly adventure, to , be remembered for months, is now merely the incident of a week.

The Free State has spent upwards of £5,000,000 since 1923 in' reconstructing ISOO miles of national highways and 6000 miles of trunk and link roads. You can travel to-day at a steady 40 miles an hour between Dublin and Limerick, Gahvay or Belfast piloted by a complete system of sign-posts, mileage indicators, and safety signals. No other country :n Europe has a better system of communications or one more efficiently maintained.

Naturally the omnibus has flourished and multiplied almost beyond belief.

Two years ago the first long-distance line (Dublin to Cavan) was opened as an experiment. By the beginning of last year services had been established over 3000 miles of roads. They extended over 4400 miles by the end of the year, when the number of passengers carried had increased from 1,900,000 to 3,360,000. Dublin-Galway in 5 Hours. To-day you con go from Dublin to Gahvay in lees than five hours, and to Limerick in little over four. Heavy coaches of the Pullman type maintain four to five services a day in each direction. Nearer points are served more frequently.

The railways are beginning to feel the effect of this competition. They have asked the Government for protection, and the answer has been a heavy tax on omnibuses. Still they flourish.

The result of this invasion has been twofold. New suburbs, made possible by the improved transportation facilit ties, have grown,up around the larger towns, and the peasants in the indi'e remote districts have been brought out of their little world. In fact, ?t might be said that the old peasant type is doomed to extinction because of this new contact with the 20th century.

They have better ehops id their disposal, better schools for their children, and wider knowledge of people and events. Newspapers reach nlariy areas on the day of publication, where formerly they were not delivered until one or two days later.

There are cottages facing the wild Atlantic that now receive before bedtime that morning's 'Daily Mail;" The increasing sale of newspapers in districts where the local Weekly was but little known is further pf'oof of the deeper interest displayed by the inhabitants 'in happenings beyond their lonely parish.

Their standard of living is changing too. They want better things and iiiore comforte, so far as they are able to afford them. The young men are no longer content to be married off, after much bargaining by their parents, to a bride with a fortune of, say, £25 and a cow, and settle ddfth docilely to humdrum life on a'little patch of land. I am told that the "marriage market"' is a declining institution. More matches are being made by the young people themselves.

Better Dressed Women. The women want better clothes. The girls show 1 a. tendency to imitate their sisters of the towns. While ittotoriug in County Clare this week I passed a \Vooden cart filled with niilk-cans and driven by a young girl. Hor shawl had fallen away from her bobbed head, she was wearing stockings of artificial eilk and smoking a cigarette with evident enjoyment. She may not be a universal type, but undoubtedly she is a symptom.

The economic effect of the change as no less significant. Local tradesmen have been hard hit by the motor omnibus. No longer do their customers have to depend upon a meagre, stock of poor articles in the geriel'al etofe —they wait for the omnibus and go into the nearest lajge town.

Some shopkeepers have already been forced to close. As might be expected, they want the motor transport services abolished arid the domination of the railways restored - .

The towns realise their greater importance in the commercial scheme. They are organising "Carnival shopping weeks" to attract the new class of buyer from the back of beyond. One community after another advertises its attractions with flags, banners, and a general air of festivity, all of which appeals powerfully to the peasant whose amusements are very few. .

£2,500,000 Creameries. * Another economic factor in the changing country districts is the co-operative creamery. There are now 102 of these Government-run organisations dotted about at "strategic" centres for the .systematic collection of milk, biltteT, and eggs. Fifty were opened recently in areas -where- hitherto the farmers have

had to depend eblely on the pr6fite of barley and cattle food. They are now able to go in for dairying, and thereby raise their, standard ot living.

Mr. Hogan, the youthful Minister of Agriculture (he was formerly a solicitor), has done much to improve the status of the people oh the land. The Irish Association of Creameries, which was formed under hia supervision to market Free State products in "foreign" countries, showed A turnover during the first twelve months of twr> and a-half millions sterling. The creameries handled from 120,000 to 130,000 gallons of milk daily.

The Irish egg owes its rehabilitation to Mr. Hogan. It fell into dierepute after the war, owing to the get-rich-quick-anyway tendency of certain oVerprosperoUs shipper*. Now, all *ggs, butter, and livestock exported from the Free State must reach the (Standard fixed by law, and supervision is very, strict. Every creamery in the country has been overhauled, and some have been entirely re-equipped, during the last two years.

Youth Shows the Way. Short-sighted communities which objected to having a creamery aie now sorry for themselves. Trade' has been deflected to the new centres, for the creameries also sell farm supplies, and even other commodities, at reasonable prices. In other ways the development of the country districts is very marked. Hoteis have been repaired and refurnished, in some cases even rebuilt, in anticipation of the increased tourist trade. The little town of Ennis can boast of a new hotel, with modern improvements and decorations which would be a credit to any great caravanserai in London or on the Continent.

Villages formerly dependent upon oil or candles are now lit by electricity. The telephone service is being extended to remote places. Village lads are going in for sport. There is a strong and popular effort to reintroduce the old Celtic games, yet football holds its own. Youth is showing the way to a new life.