WHY IRELAND SHOULD BE A MANUFACTURING NATION

New Zealand Tablet, 29 April 1920, Page 9

WHY IRELAND SHOULD BE A MANUFACTURING NATION

(By y Eamon jde Valera.)

.;.; England has caused the, finest forests in T the world to be " destroyed, ; making I no provision for replacing * them The : Irish • oak i had a world-wide reputation-—especially \ for shipbuilding. --It. is gone. In the recent war England completed the destruction ; of-the Irish woods. * <&%r-^M-ii .... To-day Ireland, once the "wooded isle," is, with the single exception of Iceland, the most treeless countryC in Europe. g But this could easily be remedied by an Irish Governmentand tho Sinn Fein organisation is proceeding to remedy it. r#~:' : .>\'' C* j i'.i l\H ■'■'•"■■■'':->'i- y :Z:\ ! t :>5iJ~- 'cfc-iWii) The English say Ireland cannot be a manufacturing nation because she has no coal. I have shown that she has coal —coal in abundance; and even though i she has not, she has peat, thousands of millions of tons of it. ' . But even that Ireland possessed neither coal "nor peat, she might still be very well a manufacturing nation, for, like , Switzerland, she has . 'white coal' in an ' amount greater than most European countries available in her mighty rivers, through neglect of which, as Lord Northcliff e pointed -out a year or two ago, "millions of horsepower are lost to Ireland every year." Sir Robert Kane estimated that taking a working year of 300 working days of 12 hours each, the loss is over 3,000,000 horse-power. ■'.'' The Shannon alone, in a space of 15 miles where the fall is 72ft, between Killaloe and Limerick,- gives- 39,950, horse-power in continuous action day and night throughout tho entire year. The other great rivers, too, for 'example, the Lee, the Liffey, tho Boyne, every one of' thein could give ample water power to make manufacturing- industries in their . neighborhood commercially profitable. The turbine engine and the -modern methods of electrical distribution put that beyond question. <-J i •. ■ Various Other Materials. ." "" Not only have we coal and peat in Ireland, but we have also lignite; not only iron, but copper, lead, silver, and other metals. Lignite, .apart from its value as a fuel, might prove of great economic importance as a source of valuable extracts and distillates. .-.•.•» In the Lough Neagh district there is a bed of lignite occupying an area of 180 square miles, and- proved in different localities to be 20ft thick. -In the inter-basaltic zone-of the : Antrim plateau it is also found, and near Port Rush is 13ft thick. There, a bed, 0 more or-.-less irregular, swells out to considerable dimensions. Copper mines form three great groups all on the sea r: side — Co. "Wicklow, Waterford, and the south-easterni angle of Cork and Kerry. In 1845 the output, according to Kane, was 25,000 tons per annum.. Lead is even more extensively diffused throughout Ireland than copper. In certain localities a large quantity of silver was, obtained from working the lead ore. These amounts range from 120 oz to the ton in Kilbracken, Clare, to 3oz in. Luganure, Wicklow.. In. the carboniferous limestone of the silver mine district in Tipperary there is an extensive mineralised bed of silver lead, zinc blende, and calamine (hemimorphite). Until recently this deposits has been worked at intervals for hundreds of years. ,*.-" Deposits of alum, quite pure, are being found in the cliffs of the West Coast, as well as various other aluminum salts. .._..■-.■.. ;- --- '■■■'■■■ - Bauxite in Several Places.. ; It is worth noting that bauxite, used for the production of the metal aluminum and for tho manufacture of sulphate of alumina, required for bleaching purposes in. the manufacture, of paper, etc.; is found iii several places in the north-east of the island. So is. Jiaematite iron ore, which, occurs in large quantities, and is easily mined* On account of the high percentage of titanic oxido it : was formerly disliked by the smelters. .. Modern- processes' have now overcome this difficulty. ' ..-. £ : V i? -^. : ?3?£ K .= Diotamite (kieselguhr) occurs in large quantities 'in the Bann Valley. It is used for a variety of purposes—for manufacture of pottery, for refractory bricks, for fireproof material in buildings, .and also in tho manufacture of explosives. ":■ • ■ - . .... ft -j-i Tin has not been found in workable deposit or to any great extent; neither has- antimony, cobalt, zinc, or sulphur, except -in combination; nor gold, though it- was found in the latter part of the eighteenth century in some of the mountains of --"Wicklowj and Wexford, and from-the quantity; of gold ornaments known to exist £iri;? ancient Ireland, taken in conjunction -, ; with collateral evidence, it is certain that there must ; have been some native source of supply in'former times. ~ *-' -'-'- A>w2|#; -Beds-of rock salt are-found near CaTrickfergusv.^lL-

little east of the town is a bed of 95 per cent, pure 'salt and ,100 ft thick, as has been proved by boring. Chalk beds are found in conjunction, making this locality, situated on an inlet of: Belfast Lough, ideal for the establishment of an alkali industry. " - f Building ' Stone Produced. - JS" * Kane refers to a collection of building ' stone made for an > exhibition of 600 different varieties, all 'Z obtained rin Ireland. Slabs of Valentia slate * are easily obtained 3ft long, 4ft to sft wide, and_ six to 12in thick. -J* A great variety•-■ of colored marbles, -all of superior quality, ; ; are . also x found. E The 'purest ;; white; £ free - from iron, lasting in color and equal, to any grade to be obtained in' Italy, is got from the Connemara district; jet black from Kilkenny and. a variety of colors from Cork County. The limestone, formations are all close to the best harbors, suggesting at once "the manufacture of cement for export, whilst the internal waterways provide economic transit for home purposes. " • Ireland has, in fact, an abundant supply of cementmaking materials, admirably- situated in regard to fuel, power, and. economical transit. James K. McGuire, in the chapters of his book; dealing, : with 1 Ireland's industrial possibilities, points this out and reminds us that a single mill such as the Universal or Atlas of the-United States turning out 50,000 to : 70,000 barrels of cement a day, would employ 50,000 hands and support no less than-400,-000 persons. Cement is manufactured at present on a large scale on the shore of Belfast Lough from the chalk of Magheramorne and the esturine mud of the lough. Calcium carbide can also be got from limestone, but only two small factories are working in Ireland. The English and Scotch factories get their raw materials from Ireland. .; In Ireland there exists the greatest variety of colored clays as Well as large beds of purest white, with kaolin and porcelain clays, thus furnishing an inexhaustible supply of material for the finest quality of pottery and chinaware to be found in any part of the world, and the earths for brick and tile making are equally good. - The fire clays of the coal district, in conjunction with Lough Neagh clays, furnish practically unlimited material for manufactures of drain pipes, sanitary ware, electrical insulators, and the rougher kinds of pottery. The silica sand deposits of Ireland are the finest in the world for glass making, for which Ireland was once famous, but which now must be reckoned as one of her lost industries. ;• \ Can anyone doubt that a nation endowed with such resources by nature could, with the fostering care of its own government, bo as prosperous as any on the earth? And yet I have here stressed only the mineral wealth of Ireland and its natural sources of energy and power, in order that I might not assist to spread the fallacy referred to at the outset by laying too much stress in the productivity of the soil from which at present not a titho of what could be extracted is extracted. I have not shown the possibilities of beet growing, of the growing of potatoes for the manufacture of commercial alcohol, or mentioned one of the. thousand possibilities of intensive cultivation. I have not even touched on the wealth of the ocean by which Ireland is surrounded—the wealth of the harbors inviting trade and commerce with almost every country in the world wealth of the deep-sea fisheries. Fine Fishing Waters. Ireland is situated in the centre of the finest fishing waters in the world; has numerous'arid excellent natural harbors, and relativo to area the longest coast line of any European country. Irish/men, like most islanders, are naturally good sailors and given to the sea. ~ Still, through the purposeful neglect of British dominated departments, presided over by Britishers drawing large salaries from Irish revenues, these fisheries in which in 1845 close to 20,000 vessels were engaged, giving employment to close on to 100,000 men and boys, were reduced to such an extent that only 18,000 men and boys were engaged in 1913. ;-. > . -■ *j The Irish sea fisheries, famous a century ago, are now almost neglible. Previous to the war they were declining in value year by year, while in England and Scotland they were increasing by leaps and bounds. The English took fish to the value of 40,000,000 dollars yearly, the Scotch 15,000,000 dollars, the Irish 17,000,000 dollars. In ten years or so the Irish yield was reduced by 25 per cent, and the English by 30 per cent. J 5 Yet Ireland had an initial advantage in position and in skill. .At the start it was Irishmen acquainted with Irish methods that had to be obtained to . organise _. the fishing industry in Scotland. It was Irishmen who taught Newfoundlanders also the rudiments from ? which the modern great fishing industry in that country has sprung. ; 'fe}.--"~ ■■..■• . ■-'.■' •' ■:.':"■'■ .;■"".: :■•■• sr>-.*--ii ;..•:■■■ <':>..: -.-. * , .*■ b >.. ;..•■-•

English, Scotch; Welsh, . and Manx trawlers ■ now operate on ovjc coasts, poaching ; even within the legal limits without any ?, attempt on the ; part of the British authorities :to prevent them, and our inland towns, which are in no .»Pi ace more than 30 miles from the coast, have to ,pu?r ' chase J fish caught; on these coasts ./from merchants in the neighborhood island of Britain to which the fish were taken in the first instance,*s with the added cost of the high freightage. V^..**/ ; x **.*'" *■---•■*■'^«> ''»»*'-' ; :;:-/ Such is the position to which we ,are :-, reduced by foreign r rule. - Can anyone doubt ' that, " like the other re- J sources, those of the sea could be developed ' at once by an interested Government chosen fby the Irish people ?5 -• ;r ~ f| Could Support 20,000,000. , ~ ; /, r Less than i three-quarters'; of 'a" century ago Ireland's'* population was over 8,500,000. The food produced : : was sufficient for a population twice as great. , Is there any reason to doubt that Ireland could well support a population of over 20,000,0000, the estimate of Sir Robert Kane, . or even of 25,000,000, the estimate of M. de Beaumont, even though we should put aside Arthur Young's- estimate of 100,000,000. .. .. . ; '- - >; \;..,,... The Dublin Guild of Merchants by resolution in January, 1799, declared that they looked "with 1 abhorrence i on any attempt to deprive the people of Ireland of their Parliament; and thereby of their constitutional right and immediate powen to legislate for themselves," for "that the commerce or Ireland has increased, . and her manufacture improved beyond example since ' the independence of this kingdom was restored by the exertion of our countrymen in- 1782." -•-"'- .;:-..., ?ta.*?Lu* The bankers of Dublin had declared a month before that "since the renunciation of the power of Great Britain in 1782 to legislate for Ireland, the commerce and prosperity of this kingdom have; eminently increased." "^ Can anyone doubt that if England's strangling grasp was again removed our merchants. and . our bankers would have "a" similar record of progress to report? Lord Clare in 1798 could say: "There is not a nation on the face of the habitable globe which has advanced in cultivation, in manufactures with the same rapidity;, in the same period i-as • Ireland—-from 1772 to 1798.". % And Lord Plunket in 1799 could say: "Ireland's revenues, her trade, her manufactures had thriven beyond the ,hope .or .the example any other country of her extent within those few years (before the Union), advancing with a. rapidity astonishing even to herself." Would it be unreasonable to believe that Irish statesmen 20 years hence could make similar boasts and be within the truth if a government of the Irish people, by the Irish people, for the Irish people were allowed to function and England's army of occupation withdrawn? ff