IRISH EMIGRATION TO AMERICA.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2501, 30 June 1915, Page 4

IRISH EMIGRATION TO AMERICA.

Sir, —Just about a week ago we read in the newspapers of this Dominion a cablegram from London, through the "Times"-S,ydney "Sun" service (a remarkable combination, to be 6ure) where 300 young Irishmen from the West of Ireland arrived at New York on board an American liner, and it is suggested that their purpose is to avoid enlistment. They were well provided with gold, so we aro informed. Ilow fortunate. Timo was whei. not a few hundred, but hundreds of thousands, aye, millions, of the Irish race emigrated to tho land of cbe Stars and Stripes, when conditions in their 01*11 land rendered it unfit to live in, and they had to quit their native home and' cross the Atlantic to the United States, where they wore warmly received, and they have thrived and prospered in the country of their adoption. But they were given very little gold. Did we then get hiring headlines in the newspapers and cable advices explanatory of why this enormous emigration from Ireland was going 011? Knowing from whom these cablegrams receive their birth, the well-in-formed Irishman knows how much reliance to place upon them, and takes tlieni with the proverbial grain of salt. Ho has fathomed them in the past, and they will not stand the light of day. But, however that may be, these messages do serve a purpose, and that is to explode the feelings of the Irish race and its descendants. Some of our newspapers are dreadfully concerned about Ireland, and they devote leading articles condemning her for this and that, deSpite the fact that she has a quarter of a million men with the colours, and this after she has been depopulated so much as mentioned above. 1

Surely when her brave sons are dying on the battlefields of Europe for the cherished liberty of the British race, surely when we remember that in Britain's battlps of the past the valiant sons of Ireland have courted death on overy hand, and have dene their share so that we might live unfettered by the tyranny and despotism of some foreign powc-r, and enjoy a common freedom, surely then Ireland might reasonably expect some consideration for her many sacrifices. With her brilliant generals and her brave soldier boys, has she not ably assisted in the fight for right. It would appear that all she has done through the centuries has not gained for her the respect and fair representation that sho is justly entitled to. On the contrary, we find men even in this enlightened ase who nourish bitter feelings in their breasts for Ireland, and the many shameful cablegrams we are introduced to' bears this out very well.

Our earth is of large dimensions, and Ireland is only a. small snot on the great planet, so let Ireland's tradncers vary things a little and turn their attention to some other country, and if they go into the thing in earnest they will surely find elsewhere plenty of scope for their energies.—I am,- etc., PATRIOTIC IRISHMAN. Stratford, June 28, 1915.