AN IRISH LAND QUESTION.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 623, 15 January 1870, Page 4

AN IRISH LAND QUESTION.

The Few York Times says :— Air Irish immigration convention, held at St. Louis early in October, was a large and earnest and a very important assembly, its object being to induce Irish immigrants not to stay in the Atlantic coastwise cities of the United States as day laborers, but to push out into the West, and especially into Missouri, Minnesota, and Kansas, and there till the soil. Such a movement, of course, is not anew one. The convention I that m@t.in St. Paul last, winter devised. a similar plan, which . was, in effect, to establish a bureau of information, with branch societies all through the United States, designed to show immigrants exactly where and how they can get at. lands to cultivate in the West. In fact, we believe that in lowa there is now an Irish agricultural settlement whose membera bold.in fee simple nearly all the land of several counties. We observe, however, that much, fear was expressed in the convention that; "New, York would be hostile" to this mo'eiueut, and; that "New York city infli.e ;ce would seek to retain the Irishf immigrants in that locality "' We think this fear to be for the most part groundless. It is very true that there is a strong disposition here to retain stout laborers for the necessities of public and private work and quite as strong a one to retain them for their votes, which are always very welcome :to professional politician^ But any reasonable scheme whWi would really deliver the immigrants from the land sharks that swim around new arrivals, aud from the tenement-house horrors wl;ich await them soon after, would be s^ heartily supported by the iti-

telligent and humane citizens of New York as by those of St. Louis, indeed, our friends in thte latter city mfiy hereafter find such established institution:! as the Irish Emigrant Aid Society of this city valuable financial allies in their own project. The great difficulty, of course, is in selecting a plan which will command general support. Hundreds of millions of acres of unoccupied lands now await settlers at the West j all substantially free, -for every actual settler- under the new Homestead law is entitled to a quarter section by merely occupying it. Or, if immigrants work for the great corporations who have got free possession of so much of the public domain, doubtless they can buy of them for a trifle more land than they can oultivate, On its third day's session the convention formed a body oorporate called the <( Irish Immigration Aid Association, r whoae object was stated to be " to aid Irish immigrants to become landholders in the United StatQ3 or territories thereof." Its noticeable feature is that the capital stock (not to exceed $2,000,000) is to be created by subscriptions at $.5 per share, no person holding over 500 shares ; this stock to be invested in United States registered bonds, and to be refunded to the original stockholders or their heirs at the end of 20 years, when the association shall end, Other provisions are made for economy of management, Of course in any such scheme the great object is to find out how, with least expense, and at the greatest benefit to all parties, the society can bring (< the man to the place" — the immigrant to the lands already selected for him. By its success in solving it the convention or society will exert a niarked influence on our New York immigrant institutions, and on the general question of the Irish element in America. But regarding these details we are promised more information a month hence, when the incorporators meet in Chicago.