"THE IRISH IN AMERICA." (FROM THE " PALL MALL GAZETTE.")

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3342, 2 April 1868, Page 3

"THE IRISH IN AMERICA." (FROM THE " PALL MALL GAZETTE.")

In the course of last year Mr. Maguire, member fop Cork, paid a visit to British America and the United States, with the fourfold object of ascertaining from personal observation and inquiry how his oountrymen were getting on and what they were doing on the other side of the Atlantic ; why they hud managed to succeed and prosper, with no capital to start with in "the New World, when it seemed impossible for them tosncceed in their own country, and when the want oi capital was alleged as the cause of their nonsuccess ; whether it was true, as habitually seated, that they too commonly fell away from the faith of their forefathers when transplanted to another hemisphere ; and finally what was the real nature and intensity of the hostile feeling towards Great Britain said to be entertained both by the emigrants and the Americanised Irish. He appears to have investigated his subject with unusual thoroughness, if not with absolute impartiality ; and the result is a work of very great interest and value, different from any other book of travels in America that we remember to have read, and of which the chief fault is that it might easily and advantageously have been compressed into half its actual compass. It abounds in repetitions, and its fluency and wealth of words are extraordinary. Still it is very pleasantly written, and abounds in information which is peculiarly valuable at the present moment. It is true, Mr,. Maguire views ererything relating to his country^ men couleur de rose ;he writes with genuine Hibernian and Catholic enthusiasm ; he admits, indeed, that even in America the Irish hare a few failingis (rather amiable weaknesses than anything else); he passes too lightly over the topic of tho sentiments with which they are regarded in the older and more orderly States of the Union, and says little or nothing of their questionable behaviourin New York and their injurious influence on American politics, both general and local. This, indeed, is the weak and defective part of his book, and prevents our being able to accept it as a complete and wholly trustworthy accdunt on the subject ; but notwithstanding this deduction, the work deserves most eyeful attention from every one who desires really tj fathom or practically to deal with what is becoming the most urgent and perplexing problem of the day. A considerable portion of the volume is devoted to the condition of the Irish settlers in the province? which still maintain their allegiance to the British Grown ; and it would appear that great members are established not only in Canada (Upper and Lower), but in New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, that they are there just as prosperous as in the United States, and owe their success to precisely the same causes and modes of proceeding, and their failure (where they fail) to precisely the same failings and mistakes. His account is the same everywhere, almost monotonous in its identity of statement and exposition. The emigrants who devote themselves to the clearing and cultivation of the soil, who "go up country," almost invariably succeed, and succeed rapidly and. signally. Those who remain in the towns and cities seldom prosper or improve, or give a favourable impression of themselves. The sober ones always get on ; those who drink invariably fail and go to the bad. Mr. Maguire repeats this lesson in almost every page ; every priest or emigrant he met with gave it as his strongest impression: — "If an Irishman cannot keep from ' the drink,' let him stay at home." In cities, especially in such cities as New York, liquor is cheap and abundant, money enough to buy it can be readily earned, temptations to conviviality are incessant, and to the social and gregarious temper of the Celt nearly irresistible. The consequence is that those who, instead of proceeding at once into the interior, dawdle in towns, retain all their old bad habits, and get them even in an aggravated form ; they subsist on odd jobs, they live from hand to mouth, they are the victims of the harderheaded natives, and gradually form the poorest and lowest portion of the population — rowdy,reckless, and disreputable ; dupes of sharpers, tools of jobbing politicians. Most of those who live as navvies fare almost as badly in the end. Eeceiving high wages and plied abundantly with new rum, they live in the New World as they did in the Old, and die much faster. On the other hand, Mr. Maguire affirms, and supports his statements by numberless instances —and there is not the leaßt reason to distrust his accuracy — that those who go upon the land at once always become properous, and usually their success is something marvellous. Coming out with literally nothing but their clothes and a small supply of provisions (not invariably even that), they hire themselves out to some neighbouring farmer or previous settler at wages which soon enable them to save enough to purchase a "lot" or a "clearing" for themselves, work for others one half the year and on their own land the other half, and find themselves landowners and capitalists — well housed, well fed, and well clad— before five years are gone. Mr. Maguire quotes case after case— principally, by the way, in the British provinces — of Irishmen landiDg with nothing but an axe a few years since, and now, when he visited them, worth £2,000, £3,000, or even £5,000 and more, having encountered often terrible hardships and difficulties, it is true, but having triumphed over them all. Now the irresistible impression — or rather the two impressions— left upon the mind by reading of all these scores of cases of spirit, endurance, and ultimate success, are these. First, it is impossible to avoid the reflection ; If only the Irish in their own land would act as they are described as doing in Canada, Nova Scotia, or Illinois— would be as industrious, as persevering, as sober, as these successful men are there— would equally eschew politics and disturbance, be as ready to turn their hands to every sort of occupation, live as peaceably, and respect the law as habitually— what a country Ireland might become I How soon and how surely would English capital flow into it, and how speedily would manufacturing industry, the great want of the people, be established in every district ! For it is curious to note that the same faults which are most fatal to the prosperity of the Irish at home are about equally fatal to them in America wherever they break out ; that is to say, wherever in the New World religious discord, false pride— "lrish gentility," »S f Mr* Maguire calls it— drink, or the practice of taking to politics instead of to labour(as too often in New York) breaks out among the Irish population, there bad blood, crime, poverty, fsilure, and degradation follow, just as surely as in Dublin or Donegal ; you have the wretched misery and discontent of the Old World over again. Sectarian hatreds—" Orangeism" Mr. Maguire calls it (seeing, as is too common with us all, only one half of the shield)— are rife in Canada as in Ireland ; and one of the most striking pages m the volume is that in which he describes the lamentable consequences of this imported bitterness even in the forests which gird in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence. The second reflection which rises in the^ mind at every page of Mr. Maguire's tempting descriptions of the astonishing success of bis countrymen as settlers in the backwoods or along the rivers of America is — How can any one who wishes well to the Irish really regret that extensive emigration which conducts them to such golden prospects— such certainties rather ? And what could Ireland— even were Ireland governed by the Irish, and administered and remodelled " in conformity with Irish ideas," according to thevague phrase now in use, and which is used even by Mr. Maguire— offer to her struggling sons that could bear comparison with the comfort, plenty, and wealth which await every sober and industrious man in the virgin forests and prairies of the New World ? Concede to Ireland what a certain number of unthinking patriots are demanding for her ; grant to the Irish peasant that " fixity of tenure" in his little holding which his soul craves, and which we are told would render him so loyal and so happy j nay, more, assume that manufactures would follow in the waka of tranquillity and content, so as to double or treble the aggregate earnings of the family ; still the utmost that the majority could look for, even in the distance, would be an income of 18s. a week instead of 65., and the undisturbed possession of three or four acres of land. This is the most golden prospect on one side of the broad water. What, according to Mr. Maguire, is the minimum prospect, the almost absolute certainty, on the other, and this not at the end of a long vista of time, but after five or ten years of patient industry at the outside ? Three or four hundred acres of rich land, and as much more for every son as soon as he shall want it : barns filled to overflowing ; flocks and herds increasing every year; a comfortable house; a political career, if he desires it ; and, most ot all, an absolute freedom from all anxiety for him or his for the future. , n „ What could the English Government, or any (government in Ireland, were it perfectly wise, perfectly beneficent,perfectly imbued with "Irish ideas, do for him in comparison ? The real gist of the matter lies here, and Mr. Maguire is far too shrewd not to be aware of it, though, singularly enough, he not only evades the inference, but talks as if the conclusion lay the other way. la Iwtand labour can only obtain Is. a day, and not »l™y* ™*£ and never (so far as we have heard) could obtain more; and land sells for £40 or £50 an acre In America labour earns a dollar, sometimes two dollars, » day ; and land without limit can be purchased for ss. an acre, or even less. What statesmanship, what

• « The Iri«h in Aineric." By John Eronci* Maguire, M.P, (London : Longmwu »nd Co. lews;.

T principles of government, can cancel or contend I against or neutralise ftcts like these ? How could an Irish peasant out of Is. a day save enough to purchase a single acre ? As soon as he crosses the water he can purchase three acres a week out of his savings. In a word, nothing he could extort out of the Old World, had he all his own way, can compare with what the New World actually urges on his acceptance. One of the most interesting parts of Mr. Maguire'a volume ishispicture of the self-devotion and energy of the Catholic priests in supplying the wants of their coreligionists, and labouring to keep them within the fold. The efforts they make, the sufferings they undergo, and the successes they achieve in the cause are alike admirable. Wherever the Catholic Church has to struggle with adversity, to en- | counter persecution,or to face difficulties and dangers, its Christian heroism would seem to he beyond praise. It is only when it becomes dominant, and rules, or seeks to rule— when it ceases to persuade and endeavours to compel — when it takes up the carnal and lays down the spiritual weapon — that its virtues and its triumphs seem to end. Probably we may say the same of every other Church and creed ; for even those in holy orders are but men still. The last chapter of the work, which describes the almost universal and virulent animosity of the Irish settled in America towards Great Britain, though painful and discouraging in the extreme, is most important, and should be carefully studied. It would appear from the author's statement, which is given with great temper and moderation, that whether Fenians or anti-Fenians, whether they fought for South or North during the civil war, whether rich or poor, educated or ignorant, old citizens or recent emigrant!, nearly all the Irish or those of Irish origin in the States hate the English nation and Government with a sentiment all the more hopeless that it is always extravagant and often admittedly irrational and unjust. The oldest families ground their hatred on the ancient, but now long abolished, penal laws against Catholics ; the emigrants of twenty or_ thirty , years have the better memory of wholeiale evictions (often no doubt justifiable enough, and sometimes the only remedy against tenants who ruined the land and paid no rent, but too frequently carried into effect with much harshness and entailing great suffering) — those of more recent date, with farfewer grounds of complaint, having carried with them across the Atlantic all the rancorous passion which dates from the repeal agitation set on foot by O'Connell, and kept sedulously alive by equally questionable patriots ever since. Meanwhile the American press, mainly in the hands of Irish writer*, is ever labouring to fan the flame, and exasperate feelings which need no fostering. The worst of the matter is that theantiEnglish feeling appears to have become a fanaticism at once concentrated and vague — indefinite in its grounds, but the reverse of indefinite in its aim and its manifestations. To injure England, to be revenged on England, to rescue Ireland, are the common phrases and express the common sentiment ; which they omit no opportunity of expressing, and it is to be feared will lose no opportunity of showing practically. All this is very sad, and the sadder that neither the best intentions nor the wisest intellect appears able to suggest a remedy. The following quotation contains pretty nearly everything that Mr. Maguire can contribute to the end desired :—: — # " By laws and police — physical power if you will — you may suppress a visible and tangible organisation ; but neither by penalty nor punishment, prosecution nor persecution, can you reach a sentiment. The profound belief which lies at the root of this hostility, and gives life to every anti-British organisation — that Ireland is oppressed and impoverished by England ; that England hates the Irish race, and would exterminate them were it in her power — can only be conquered by a conviction of the justice and wisdom of England, as exhibited not only in her government and legislation, but in the prosperity and contentment of Ireland. Let Ireland be dealt with in the same spirit, liberal and confiding, in which England has dealt with her colonies — respecting the rights of conscience through the most complete religious equality and the utmost freedom of education. Let her legislate for a country almost wholly agricultural — and which from many causes stands in relation to other portions of the United Kingdom in an entire!} exceptional position — in somewhat the same spirit which has characterised her policy in reference to the tenure of land in Lower Canada, where she sanctioned the abolition of the Seignorial rights ; in Prince Edward's Island, where, while suppressirg an illegal association, the representative of the Crown proclaimed the wisdom of converting leases into freeholds, and of effecting that change by the purohase of large estates, principally belonging to absentees, and selling them at low terms to existing ocoupiers and new settlers j or in India, by affording security of tenure— that most potent of all incentives to human industry— to a race previously trampled on and oppressed. Let a generous, kindly, sympathetic spirit breathe in the language of her statesmen and her orators, and mark the writings of her journalists. The result, if successful, would be worth any trouble and any effort ; for once allow the Irish in America to believe that a brighter day has dawned for their brethren in the old country, and that it is for their advantage to be linked in affection and interest with Great Britain, and the feeling of bitter, rancorous, and vengeful bate may gradually soften and die out, and eventually fade into oblivion like a dream of the past."