IRISH-AMERICAN REMITTANCES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 47, 21 March 1874, Page 11

IRISH-AMERICAN REMITTANCES.

Dr. N. Hancock, whose official connection with the Irish Government gives weight to his public utterances, read a paper at tb.9 recent meeting in Dublin of the Statistical Society, on the subject of •• Irish Emigration, and its consequences," which is deeply interesting as exhibiting tangible proof of the affestion entertained by the Irish emigrants for the friends left behind them, and of the enormouj services they have rendered to their abandoned country by the remittances Bint home to solace and aid such of their poorer relatives as must otherwise have had recourse to the rates for support. It would scarcely be credited — although the report of the Local Government Board, from which Dr N. Hancock derives his information, clearly establishes the f ct— that in the twenty-one years from 1852 to 1872 Ibe remittances sent from America by emigrants to their friends in Ireland largely exceeded the amount levied during the same period by rates for the relief of Irish indigene— the latter amounting to £13,167,000, while the former reached the enormous sum of £14,830,000. That is to say, the voluntary contributions of the emigrants towards tho necessities cf their kinsfolk exceeded by no less than, in round numbers, £1,250,000 the sum levied by law for the maintenance of the entire pauper population of the country. In the year 1872, not a favorable one to the 'ab mring classes in the United States, the remittances reache 1 £750,000, while only £729,000 was appropriated to the relief of destitution at home. "It is impossible," as Dr. Hancock remarks, " not to see what a gigantic social force these remittances are, whether regarded as characteristic of the Irish emigrant, or as affecting questions connected with the condition of the Irish labouring classes." We may 9afjly, we believe, assert, that no instance of such durable affection towards their families — tested as it is by pecuniary proof — can be adduced in regard to the emigrants of any other nation. — ' The Ilour.'