IRELAND REVISITED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1907, 26 November 1918, Page 1

IRELAND REVISITED.

SIGNS AND PORTENTS

RURAL PROSPERITY

Ten days in my native Dublin and visits to old haunts in Cork, Limerick, and their neighbourhoods have enabled me to take stock of the present Irish situation, writes Mr Alfred P. Graves, in an English newspaper. The housing question in the Irish cities is an acute one —an abiding difficulty in Dublin, which serves as the dumping-ground of the unemployed or Ihe casual labourers from (he neighbouring country purls. These have degenerated into a peculiarly dangerous slum population, whose stronger elements took

part with Connolly and his citizen army in (he Easter rebellion of 191(1, and whose half-starving residum broke out- of the slums to pillage in its w;ike. But a tine example of wind might be made of derelict Dublin is afforded by Lord tveagb’s tenement bouses and their green surroundings in Ihe neighbourhood of St. Patrick's Cathedral. This social evil cannot, however, he radically dealt with until the slum children are rescued from the “blind alley" occupations into which, when not half-educated, they escape from ineffective school attendance officers and over-indulgent police magistrates.

Another instance of t lie still piecemeal social progress of 1 j’:blin is (ho pleasant use of St. Stephen’s Green as a people’s park and a children’s 'playground, while the line spaces of Merrimi ami Almmtjoy Spun res are only open to ami scarcely used by (lie comfortably-oft folk who reside around (hem. Mountjoy Square, in particular, would he of untold value to the dense population of the labouring classes who live about it, and jmvo no gardens within walking distance of them to frequent. Here the tired workman might sit or stroll with his wife and children, or take high tea with them in such kiosks as are to bo found in the Phoenix Park, instead, of helping to till the public houses without them.

OutAvardly the country parts of Ireland have never looked name prosperous. Neat cottages with concrete Avails, slate mops, and trim gardens, haat replaced the (hatched hovels Avilh untidy potato patches. The dress of men and women of the agricultural classes has noticeably improved, the jaunting-cars and country carts .arc smarter and cleaner, the horses belter groomed and harnessed, and tin l waste lands about (he country towns, before full of rubbish of all kinds, have been converted into Avell-kepl allotments; Avhile Avhercver you took tine Helds of corn and potatoes and crops of hay, good in quality if somewhat light in quantity, meet the eye. Even the turnips, which threatened to bs a failure, arc giving quite good promise. Earmcrs of one hundred acres are likely to realise as much as £1,500 for their hay, and as I walked round his fields with a distinguished gentleman farmer recently, I sa-Av some seventy acres of Avheat, bailey, oats, and potatoes of (he most approA'ed kinds and in the most nourishing condition. Moreover, an hour ami a-balf spent with him at a meeting of the Limerick Farmers’ Association, Avliich he had helped to establish, proved to me that a great movement Avas on fool to firing (lie 450,000 Irish farmers together, independently of creed and politics, for their common good and for that of the labourers employed by . them, Avith Avhosc own union they might establish an agreed scale of wages. JOINT ACTION BY FARMERS AND LABOURERS. 'Phis fanners’ organisation is being promoted largely Avith the object of restraining the almost automatic poAvers proposed to be conferred on the Irish Board of Agriculture through the recommendations of the Selhorne Committee, Avliich are so drastic as virtually to make that Department State landlord of the Irish soil. If Avisely guided, it is hound to do even more for the peaceable progress of Ireland, because on more genuinely co-operative grounds than Sir Horace Plunkett's great agricultural movement. Such joint action on the part of her farmers and labourers if not a panacea for Ireland’s morbid condition Avould do much to restore her health, especially if backed by the establishment of farmers', if not labourers’, institutes, supplied Avith suitable libraries, reading and slioavrooms, and opportunities for testing together the latest developments in agric u11 ura Ima chinery an d- diseu s - sing in common the latest methods of culture. Irish farmers, the 1.A.0.5. notwithstanding, have still much the same reputation for aloofness from one another, and suspi-

don of novelty as those of England A aml Wales. Closer association

would, moreover, (end to improve (heir standard of; living and houseJiold amenities, which now, in spite of their great prosperity, show little to distinguish them from their own labourers. Again, a better and more vocational edueation of (heir children would help (hem to improve their professional as well as their social position.

THE SOLDIERS AND THE PEOPLE.

Outwardly,-; no doubt, there in quiet in the face of the large bodies of British soldiery that keep the. peace. The Irish regiments have been removed from the country; to have called on them to repress by force the violence of their fellow-

countrymen would have been unthinkable. All attacks on small knots of British troops or individual soldiers by combinations of corner boys have been met with the severe handling (hat they deserved, and have, in consequence, ceased. .Bui, there is a strangely incurious, not of say callous, .altitude on the pari, of the population towards (he war and its representatives, the British, soldiers, who t'-ii me that at present they feel like a garrison in an enemy's country. Indeed, while .jocular remarks pass from one to im-

other of the Saturday street crowds, and race meetings and such Irish .games and sports as are permitted are at tended hy large bodies of interested spectators, there is, close beneath the surface of the public bearing a smouldering spirit of antiEnglish feeling, of which it. is impossible not to be sensible.