IRISM EMIGRATION TO AMERICA

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 49, 28 June 1915, Page 6

IRISM EMIGRATION TO AMERICA

[To The Editor Stratford Post.] Sir, —Just about a week ago we read in the newspapers of this Dominion a cable from London, through the "Times-Sydney Sun" service (a remarkable combination to be sure), where 300 young Irishmen from the west of"rlreland arrived at New York on board an American liner, and it is suggested that. -their purpose -is to avojd enlistment. They were well provided s wifch gold, so we are informed. How fortunate! Time was'when not a.few hundred but hundreds of thousands, aye millions, of the Irish race emigrated to the land of the -Stars ands Stripes, when conditions in their own; land rendered it unfit to live in, and they had to quit their native home and cross the Atlantic to, the United States, here they were warmly received, and they have thrived and prospered in the country of their adoption; but they were given very little gold. Did we then get luring headlines in the newspapers and cable advices explanatory of why this enormous emigration from Ireland was was going on? ... Knowing

from whom these cables receive their, birth, the well-informed Irishman knows how much reliance to place upon them, and takes them with the proverbial grain of salt. He has fathomed them in the past, and they will not stand the light of day. 'But, however that may be, these lying messages do serve a purpose, and that is to explode the feelings of the Irish race and its descendants. Sonie of our newspapers are dreadfully concerned about Ireland, and they devote leading articles condemning her. for this and that, despite the fact that vshe has a been depopulated so much as mentioned above. Surely when her brave sons are dying to the death on the battle-fields of Europe for the cherished liberty of the British race j surely, when we remember that in Britain's battles of the past the valiant sons of Ireland have courted death on every hand, and have done their share so that we might live unfettered by the tyranny and despotism of some foreign power and enjoy a common freedom; surely, then, Ireland might reasonably' expect, some consideration for her many sacrifices. With her brilliant generals and her brave soldier boys, has she not ably asvsisted in the fight for right ? It would appear that all she has done through the centuries has not gained for her the respect and fair representation that she is justly entitled to. On the contrary, we find men even in. this enlightened age, how nurture bit-. tor feelings in their breasts for Ireland, and the many shameful cables we are introduced to bears this out very well. Our earth is of large dimensions, and Ireland is only a small spot on the great planet, so let Ireland's traducers vary things a little, and turn, their attention to some other country, and if they go into the thing in earnest they will surely find elsewhere plenty of scope for their, energies. I am, etc. . i "PATRIOTIC IRISHMAN." •■"Stratford, 28th June, 1915.' *, V i '*

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