“Æ.’S” WONDERFUL PAPER

Evening Star, Issue 18227, 17 March 1923, Page 7

“Æ.’S” WONDERFUL PAPER

A SERVICE TO IRELAND. “One of the greatest assets of Ireland, perhaps the greatest, is a little cheaply-printed agricultural ■weekly called the ‘ Irish Homestead ’ (says the * Freeman,' New York). Week after week this modest periodical appears, crowded with the usual information of interest to farmers—information concerning crop conditions, the technique of marlcoting, the ■well-being of stock, improvements in the mechanics of wringing productivity from the soil, and the like; and along with these practical formalities flows a running comment on affairs and society which is marked with such shrewd com-, mon sense, such far-reaching cultural and 1 economic implications, and such kindly humor and sympathy as to make the ‘ Homestead ’ a true mirror of human values. The secret of the ‘ Homestead' is that it looks on life through the clear eyes of a poet and a philosopher of rarelyadjusted intelligence. Years ago, when Sir Horace Plunkett founded the cooperative movement in Irish agriculture, he looked about for a man to inspire the imagination of the Irish farmers in favor of his saving idea. With' remarkable insight, he selected a poet, a man of mystical inspiration, concerning whom there was even a tradition that ho bad talked with the fairies,

In no other land but Ireland, wo suspect, would such a man have been chosen to make a practical effort in what is vulgarly known in more civilised countries as salesmanship. But when Gcorgo W. Russell (‘/E.’) was selected as organiser and manager for the Irish co-operative movement, ho merely purchased a secondhand bicyclo and went pedalling about tho country, visiting tho farmers. Those tight-fisted and suspicious sons of tho sod believed in him because, being a poet, lie was on© with the farmer and his slock and the growing crops and tho very soil of Ireland. The result of this remarkable adventure has never been written up in any of our advanced organs of salesmanship, and probably its processes could not bo adequately described in such a medium of uplift! At any rate, the inspired fanners in large numbers paid in their advance-foes, and tho co-operative movement was born. The ‘ Irish Homestead ’ became the organ of the co-operative movement, with Mr Russell as its editor. For nearly twenty years ho bus served its column*, and has pen seams a* fresh to-day as whoa ho began that long journey. Like most good papers, tho ‘ Homestead 1 has been comfortably poor. It never had a larger capital than £3OO, and recently, what with tho continued dislocation of tho economic prooceses of tho country, the editor announced that it had como to tho end of its resources, and unless it could raise £I,OOO in new capital it would have to suspend. Tlio trouble was not that tho circulation had fallen off, for subscribers do not give up a paper like tho ‘ Homestead,’ but that under th© troubled conditions advertising had dwindled. A thousand pounds would carry the paper into next summer, by which time it was hoped peace might (bit established; and the editor declared that any smaller sura would bo merely an intellective stop-gap. Mr Russell made hut on« condition about tho money. It must by no means affect the absolute freedom of the editor. “It is the business of the editor to edit,” h© wrote, “ and if ho sinks into a positioned being'merely a mouthpiece of others, like a barrister paid to plead a case In whoso justice ho may or may not believe, ho corrupts his mental integrity, and very soon ho will corrupt tho montel integrity of his readers.” It is pleasant to note that ©yon amidst the welter of discordant strife in Ireland the modest appeal was not lost. Reading over the pages ono feels that if only tho ' Homestead ’ is saved out of the wreck of Irish affairs Ireland will still preserve its essential soul.