OUR IRISH LETTER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 33, 14 August 1902, Page 9

OUR IRISH LETTER.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) Dublin, June 3, 1902. The Shipjping Combine

They are very canny people down in Belfast They are very loyal, and they are Orange and Blue when it suits them, and when it does not, they can be just what they iike.and no thanks to any one. But now it has come to pass that Messrs Harland and Wolfe have joined an Amer-* ican corner that it is thought will seriously injure, if not nuin, England's trans-oceanic trade. The great Belfast firm (the builders of the finest ships in the world) has en-> tered into a contract with an American shipping combine to build such; a fleet of merchantmen as will practically leave English trading vessels! nowhere, and make the Americans dangerous rivals in trade. Moreover Messrs Harland and Wolfe, preferring" foreign cash to even their King's supremacy over foreign countries, ha,va contracted over to the American; combine, for a long period, all the product of their great concerns, the finest shipbuilding yards in the world. It is said that when the news of this corner burst upon England, the consternation of those concerned was unspeakable. Yet it is in loyal Belfast this thrust at England and her merchant service is made, not in any of the provinces that are now suffering under Coercion rule.

The Right Color

It is often said now-a-days that) the bigotry of Protestants in this] country, tho efforts to keep Catholicsi from rising to wealth and eminence at home are actually almost more rank and more active than in penal days. In fact, nothing that can bo done is left undone to advance Protestants to every post worth having in Ireland, while proselytism is supported by a grant of £20,000 per annum, a sum which does much to corrupt our poor and to keep alive* religious animosities between Catholics and Protestants. Our workhouse system is a vile ono ; few now deny that O'Connell was right in denouncing it as productive of in J calculable evil. Some years ago a move was made towards alleviating the evil of rearing infants in these cold houses and the plan was tried of boarding out children singly amongst the decent poor, to bo reared in honest homes where the poon little creatures ha\e some chance of winning the affection tho Irish woman so often gives to even a strange child. The boarding out of these childncn is under the inspection of ladies appointed by the local Boards of Guardians. It was lately decided by Government to appoint a head inspector to look after these boarded-out children, and a Protestant woman from England was appointed, although many Catholic. Irish ladies would gladly have taken the situation, were it only to see to the religious welfare of the children is who, as well as their foster-parents, are nearly all Catholics. As a protest against what they consider an intolerable wrong, many Boards of Guardians have point blank refused to furnish the names of children boarded out or tho addresses of the women in whose charge the littld children are.

Again, in the Dublin Albert Farm. a model farm for tho training of young men and women, since Mr. Horace ITunkett became vice-presi-dent of the Board of Agriculture, the Lrish teachers and other employees havo been gradually removed and English and Scotch Protestants) put in their places, while the resident head managen is a Protestant from the Orkney Islajuds. In tho Royal Irish Constabulary, there are

39 county inspectors, 214 district inspectors. Of the former — all highly paid) — 35 are Protestants, 4 aro Catholics , of the latter 154 are Protestants ; 60 are Catholics. In. every Government department tho proportions are about the same. M.B.