1876 IN IRELAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 208, 30 March 1877, Page 7

1876 IN IRELAND.

■«• Dublin, December 22, 1876.— The year ] 576 has not been one of exciting events in Ireland. Politically, it -was an extremely tame period. Under a Tory administration, to which the political sympathies of the vast majority of the Irish people are opposed, no legislation in the direction of reform or amelioration could be expected. The Home Rule party brought forward a motion for a select committee to inquire into the nature of the claim advanced for local legislation, -which was defeated, the chief incident in the debate being the eloquent speech of Mr. P. J. Smyth, member for Westmeath, a speech, which, it is feared, will cost him his seat. Numbers of bills in the direction of popular demands were introduced, to gratify the vanity of individual members, and as an evidence of Parliamentary industry to their constituents, without the remotest hope of their ever reaching the stage called a second reading. Of these, by far the most important was the Irish University Bill, introduced by Mr. Butt, but which wholly fell through. The only measure of the session was a miserable Municipal Act, restoring to Irish Corporations portions of the privileges which they formerly enjoyed, and which English Corporations still enjoy, in the appointment of sheriffs. No material change took place as regards the representation in the House of Commons. Contention amongst the popular party, in the city of Cork, on the lamented death of the patriotic Joseph Ronayne, led to the return of a Conservative, the first time for years in the capital of Munster. A vacancy in Leitrim, however, balanced this defection, a Liberal and a Catholic having succeeded a Conservative. Just at the close of the year, the death of Sir John Esmonde, M.P., causes a vacancy in Waterford county. Before this event, fifty of the one hundred and three Irish members (Cashel and Sligo boroughs disfranchised) •were Catholics, and about seventy-three Liberals, nearly all of them Home Rulers.

_ It has been a year of fair harvest, average commercial prosperity, diminished pauperism and crimes, vastly decreased emigration, entire freedom from political excitement and agitation, and for almost the first time, in more than thirty years, a slight increase of population. The steady growth of wealth, but far inferior to the rate of progress in England and Scotland, the improvement in the condition of the masses of the people, in food, clothing, and habitations, and the general diffusion of higher comforts amongst the industrial classes are admitted.

These circumstances, coupled with' the unfavorable reports from the United States for the last few years, have completely checked emigration to the West. The few that have gone went to join the chief portion of their families on the other side, their pasgages having been paid in the States. Almost as many have re-

turned to Ireland from the States during the year as have left. I had opportunities of seeing many of those returned, and although few or none have come back intending to remain, all have returned under industrial pressure. A considerable number of those who have come back have emigrated to Australia and New Zealand. The great Republic may now accept the fact that no further material accession of immigration can possibly be hoped for from Ireland. Waifs and strays, driblets of families will for many years, no doubt, continue to join their relations beyond the Atlantic, but emigration from Ireland, in the past sense, is at an end. People are quite content with the dull, quiet comforts, which, now, every industrious person can command at home, so that the spirit for emigration has died out. At the same time, such is the fascination of the exciting industrial and social atmosphere of the States that no rational emigrant would assent to the supposition that he was going to remain in this sleepy and unfortunate country. Ireland is more happy ; America is more prosperous. To combine both is the vexed problem. — f Catholic Review.'