IRISH GOODS WITH ENGLISH BRANDS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 17, 21 August 1885, Page 19

IRISH GOODS WITH ENGLISH BRANDS.

f {New York Sun.") DUBLIN, June 1. — On St. John's Day, the 24th of this month, is to be ■ solemnly inaugurated herein Dublin the Irish Artisans' and Industry Exhibition, an event which I bail fervently as an earnest of returning prosperity to this sadly impoverished land, and as the forerunner • of the revival of the national activity and the development of the national resources. I have just returned from a leisurely survey of the buildings, and a long conversation with one of the most energetic promoters of this praiseworthy enterprise. The first artiole sent for exhibition was a pair of horseshoes ■ from a Tipperary black smith — an omen of good luck and success. The Limerick Athenseam has sent up its organ, organ recitals being one prominent feature of the amusements provided. And, let me r say it here, in no part of Europe or America have I heard sweeter voices than in ancient Erin, bo long and deserverdly called the Land of Song. There will be a grand concert on the opening day. At any rate this is a noble effort towards lifting up the hearts and strengthening the hands of the labouring men of Ireland. To me, who have just been going over the long, sad, hopeless recital of their sufferings and wrongs, their cause seems the most sacred I have ever had to plead. With all the voiceß of my soul I call out ' to Irish-Americans, to all Americans, indeed, visiting Ireland this ..year, to give their countenance, their sympathy, their support to the sorely tried laboring and industrial interests of this kingdom, in this ' endeavor to show to their countrymen and the world what a field there is here for labour, and how ready and able the workman is to undertake it. " It will be a revelation to Irishmen," said one of my informants yesterday, " when they discover by reference to exhibits, how many ■ articles sold here as first class English goods, and with the brand of English houses, have been manufactured in Ireland." This is only one of the mysteries of English misrule in Ireland, one instance among a hundred of the systematic spirit ia which English commercial selfishness abssrbs everything and claims to ■ sell everything as its own produce. No one, therefore, in America will blame me for calling public attention to this supreme effort of * the depressed and unaided toilers of Ireland to make known to the world that they are anxious to have their country a sharer in the golden harvest of modern industry. A desperate crisis has arrived in Ireland for industries of all -kinds— for labour itself, in fact. It is useless to conceal it. The question is now whether an Irishman will be allowed to toil or to live on his own native soil, whether it is not for the interest of Englishmen that Ireland be turned rato a grazing farm to supply their own markets with meat and butter, and to starve the Irish mechanic and agriculturist out of the island altogether. Do not think I am putting the case in too strong or too startling a form. I Bay deliberately, that Irish land owners and British manufacturers and trades unions are working systematically and - successfully to kill every single remnant of native or local industry in this unhappy and wretchedly misgoverned country. The Irish landlords are continuing their system of extermination, ia spite of land acts and land courts. Only think of it — 15,000 evictions in Ireland during the last twelve months 1 And, besides that, the mighty stream of emigration, which carried away from her shores some 120,000 of the yonng and the able-bodied — all, indeed, wko -could fly from the advance of the Crowbar Brigade, or who bad hoped to find in any part of the world the chance to labour and to live denied them at home. The examination of such men as Dr. Sullivan, President of the ' ■Queen's College, Cork, before the Select Committee of Parliament on Irish industiies, has elicited facts which ought to open the eyes of Irishmen to the gravity of the present crisis. His revelations -and those of other eminent men, who were examined after him, have ' caused a sensation in the English Press. English restrictive legislation and English commercial jealousy, with the enormous wealth of England at its command, have suppressed one after the other every Irish manufacture, every industry, every source of skilled and unskilled labour within the length, and breadth of this land. Such is the plain tale told by men whose position, learning.'and ante- • cedents place their testimony above all suspicion. The whole country is continually scoured in every direction by an army of runners, the agents of English, Scotch, and Welsh firms, who watch the first attempts at establishing local manufactures, the first timid growth of any native industry, in order to thwart and kill them. In Cork, while I was there last fall, there was an attempt •made by a worthy man to establish a manufacture for lucifer matches in the South parish, and thus gave enployment to some -scores of young people of both sexes, who with their families, were literally starving. Well, this was discovered by the 'runners of some English house, who at once imported a much cheaper but inferior article; who, in fact, gave their matches for almost nothing to the Cork shopkeepers. When I visited the Irish factory in September, they were making a brave fight ■against their English competitors. And it was a hopeless struggle. So it is with the starch factory established by Mr. Denny Lane, . of Tqung Ireland fame, also in Cork. 1% employs hundred s * •of hands; but they are making great sacrifices and efforts to kill it. Even Mr. Mahony's celebrated cloth mills at Blarney are an object •of fierce hostility to Manchester and Birmingham. Fortunately our New York merchants have discovered the superiority of the tweeds iproduced at Blarney and buy up all that the mills can turn out. I could enumerate like cases in every city and county in Ireland. One. fact established by the examination of the scientists and eivii engineers called before the Parlialiamentary committee is, that in Ulster the coal deposits in the immediate vicinity of the rich Arigna iron beds can supply for generations cheaper fuel to work the mines than could , be obtained from. Newcastle. And yet the once prosperous works are utterly extinct I Such is also the case with the exhaustless beds of fine potter's clay along the upper Shannon ;

there is cheap fuel in abundance. ' But the manufacturers oould not withstand the ruinous competition of the English house*. Herein Dublin there is not a trade or industry which is n*t jealously watched in its growth and strangled by the all-powerful rivalry of the English trades unions. An instance occurs jus tat this very moment. The enterprising publishing house of Mr. M. H. Gill and Son employs in its bindery a number of yonng girls. These, as Mr; Gill told me as late as last Christmas, he employs on principle, both because there is a sad need of employment for young persons of their sex, and because the work they do in bookbinding is suited to their strength, and they can do it better than men. We know in New York how much of such work is done by girls, and how much better the more delicate parts of binding is performed by female hands. Here a trades union, having its Beat in Liverpool, has stepped in to prevent the employment of female labour in bookbinding. If the union could carry out its purpose, as Mr. Galvin, the Dublin Secretary, writes : "If men could be kept from coming to Gill and Son, principle would win the day. I am certain the work would be sent to London, where respectable workmen would be employed." Just so 1 And as things are, everything does go to England. Even the paper manufactured in Ireland is sent wholesale to Great Britain, when it comes back made up in nice packages, with the imprint of an English or Scotch firm. During the Prince of Wales's visit the very cards of invitation to the civic ball, the laying of the corner-stones, etc., were sent to be executed in London, while it is notorious that the Dublin artists design most exquisitely, and Dublin printers execute most beautiful ornamental work. Nothing is valued, nothing is fashionable, nothing is saleable if it happens to be of Irish manufacture. And yet Ireland possesses both the rich material and inventive genius and the experienced handicraft required for successful competition — if she were not so heavily handicapped in the race. At any rate, with the agitation kept up all over the country by the great Nationalist weekly meetings, and the hopes of coming homerule which fill the air, Irish industry lifts up her head. Yes Irishmen yearn for home rule, because that means protection for their-: own skilled labour and its products, for Irish trade and commerce. No wonder that Irishmen all over the world hate free trade, which to them means, practically, English monopoly and selfishness ; and that all their sympathies are for protection. God grant them soon their own Parliament, and a moderate share of protective legislation, to make their fields fruitful, their fisheries productive, their mines yield iron and coal ; to render their magnificent water power available for industry ; to cover their lakes and rivers with craft bearing the produce of their own toil, and to multiply all over the land the healthy and happy homes of the native toilers. Bbbnabd O'Reilly.