A TEST OF IRISH PROSPERITY

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 205, 9 March 1877, Page 9

A TEST OF IRISH PROSPERITY

The ' Financier ' says that bankers could, if they chose, tell a good deal about the growing prosperity of Ireland. Bankers, it is true, do not actually see, by any means, all the savings of the people, but they come across some portion of them. Bankers in Ireland occasionally, and indeed frequently, have their attention much struck by the magnitude of the deposits which are lodged with them by persons of apparently very humble means. This feature is satisfactory in more senses than one. In the first place, such deposits prove 'that the people are doing well and saving money. In the next place, they show that a desire to hoard, and to hold money back from remunerative employment, is dying out, or, rather is being superseded by a more enlightened perception of the uses to which money may be put, and of the advantages to be derived from it. 4gain, it is satisfactory to find that confidence in the banks is growing, for one of the first effects of this will be to cause not only present savings, but also the past accumulation of hoarded money in Ireland to be more extensively utilised. In a word, money is coming out of the " stocking," and being put to its proper employment. The extension of the branches of banks in Ireland tells a tale of the same sort. Such branches would not ba established were it not that they either actually pay or hold out a good promise of doing so. We have in our eye more than one Irish town of only about 5,000 inhabitants, in which there are already established three branches of as many different banks. It is likewise satisfactory to notice the way in which the Irish people are beginning to support native undertakings. Even in cases where Irish concerns are " brought out " in the first instance in England, the shares are being gradually bought up on Irish account, and absorbed locally. Many instances of this may be cited, such, for example, as the Dublin Tramways company (Limited), the shares of which, with paid, are now quoted at 16} to 16}. This concern is doing well, and is paying 8 per cent, dividends.