FAILURE OF CROPS IN IRELAND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVIII, Issue 11368, 8 September 1897, Page 5

FAILURE OF CROPS IN IRELAND.

“The most distressful country” appears to have fresh suffering ahead of it. According to a Government inspector’s report, the potato, corn and hay crops are ruined in the mountain districts, and the Irish peasantry have a winter before them which threatens to he the worst known fos fifty years. Its was in 1846-47 that the- great potato famine was experienced, which caused so much distres»nd death in Ireland, and started that great stream of, emigration which, in a few years’ time, reduced the population of the country by over two millions. A writer in the Encyclov fcedia Britannica, some years ago, gravely contended that the potato disease was a kind of providential judgment upon the people for having gone to extremes in the subdivision of the soil, early marriages and rapid increase of population. More rational ideas now prevail on such subjects, and the recurrent failures of the potato crop in Ireland are attributed to purely natural causes, such as the want of rotation of crops, and the redundant moisture in the atmosphere of the Green Isle. This year’s failure appears to be due to exceptionally wet weather just before the harvest. Strangely enough, a Dublin newspaper in July last lamented the fact that rain had not fallen anywhere in Ireland on St Swithin’s Day, as it thought in such warm weather as then prevailed “ the prospect of forty days’ drought is not agreeable,” The old rhyme declares— St Swithin’s day if thou dost rain For forty days it will remain. St Swithin’s day if thon he fair. For forty days ’twill rain nae mair.

All experience has shown that the state ef the weather on July 15 has no effect or bearing whatever on the weather of the succeeding forty days. Jn the case of, Ireland this year it is evident that there has been too much rain in some districts, and that in consequence the people in considerable areas are in danger of famine. Instead of the “ slump in umbrellas and mackintoshes” which the Dublin journalist humorously anticipated as the outcome of a dry St Swithin’s Day, there is a prospect of widespread ruin and starvation. It is to be hoped that things may turn out better than is now anticipated. Should the worst happen the British Government and people will, as before, exert themselves to the utmost to alleviate distress. The real lesson of the great famine has not been fully realised, however, or Irish manufacturing and other industries would have received such encouragement as would have led to an expansion sufficient to afford employment for a large percentage of the people, instead of leaving them directly dependent upon the fruits of the soil. A new. Irish famine may thus in a sense he the Nemesis for long-deferred political reforms. Certainly, a recurrence of famine in a country that at one time supported eight millions of people will strengthen the demand that is being made for the lightening of taxation and the removal of those restrictions that have hindered the industrial development of the sister isle.