"STAY AT HOME."

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVLI, Issue 13, 27 September 1911, Page 7

"STAY AT HOME."

IRISH PRIEST’S VIEWS ON EMIGRATION. LONDON, August 18. ”in the name of God I exhort you to stay-, at home in the land where your mother bo’re you, and where t::e ashe'r of your poor father may be laid. . . . Yes, stay at home, and your faith will be secure, and your happiness in the future world will be secured. Go to foreign lands and we know not what may become of you." Thus Father Prendergast last Sun.lay. to a very- large audience in Ballindaggin, after an absence of thirty- years spent in various new countries. New Zealand among them. Of the Dominion and its ways the worthy priest had much lo say. The following are extracts: “I have spoken a lot of America. Let me say a few words of Australia and New Zealand. In these countries the. social conditions are somewhat simitar to those we leave behind, and there is a somewhat better prospect. Not that 1 would advise you to go there. ’ For what is the life of the young man who ventures thither? He works hard from early morning until late at night. He lias to make his own bed and sweep his own room, if he has one. At the appointed hour of the morning he must tie at his work, or he is told that lie must at risk of losing his job. If he is -sick he is quickly dispensed with, to make the best he can of W, In .summer he lab. ours under a broiling sun, helped, on by the urging curse of some heartless steward or overseer. In winter he is engaged in cutting and hewing wood for firing and fencing. Can he hope to get a farm? He has no means. Docs he get a farm, he has not the wherewith to stock it. Does he manage to stock, a dry summer may leave him a beggar. Hence he remains a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, and becoming discontented with his unhappy lot he forgets himself and his friends at Home. All that is good leaves him, and God knows what in the end becomes of him. Such is the sad fate of most of our poor Irish emigrants. When you leave this country you may wive up all idea of social enjoyment. You won’t hear the tunes you liavc played by- your bands this evening. You won’t find people interested in Home Rule. Your next door neighbour may be twenty miles away. You are away from neighbour, school and church See the extent of Australia and its population. Including Tasmania and New Zealand, there are but about five mil lions of people or something more than you have in Ireland.

“If you now- ask. do I encourage emigration, I say, emphatically, NO. Thu dispersal of the Irish has performed its mission, the spreading of the Gospel of Christ. In no English-speaking nation would theie be a vestige of faith were it not for the Irish. Ninety per cent of the Catholics of England are Irish. Practically every Catholic in Australia is Irish. The same may be said of Tasmania. New Zealand. South Africa. . . . “Do you think the Governments of these countries would be sending out agents to induce Irishmen to go to them if it were not a gain to them? Do you think it is done purely for the benefit of the individual? No; these agents are highly-paid officials sent over to seduce the people by false and lying-promise*. They work for their own interest, not for the would-be emigrant. They- work to please their masters, and care bttle for their dupes.”