The Bishops' Committee on Irish Emigration.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 25, 19 June 1902, Page 2

The Bishops' Committee on Irish Emigration.

The Standing Committee of the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland have just issued an important statement of their views on the continued exodus of the Irish population — an exodus by which the country has been robbed of a quarter of a million of inhabitants within the last ten years and of little short of four millions within the last fifty years. Providence, the Bishops maintain, has provided sufficient room for the Irish people in their own country. 'If only they were employed in cultivating Irish land and engaged in the manufacturing and industrial occupations that should find place in every city, town, and village ( f Ireland," and there can be no doubt that if the old policy, as the Bishop of R iphoe expressed it, 'of denying- Irishmen any share in tin- government of their own country, except as the instruments of opp'esMon, of depriving them of higher education, o! taxing them beyond endurance, in addition to maintaining a ruinous 1 mcl system ' w^re done away there would bi' no nevel for the sad outflow th it is draining away the m m'io,)d and worn mhood of the nation. Independent however of the iadic.il cause ot the depopulation the Bishops issue an earnest and sensible warning as to the unwisdom on the put ot 'Jie vast majority ot mile (migrants to the United St iU-s and Can id i in quitting Ireland m the present condition of the Aineiican 1 lbor market. In the old days an Irish emigrant t) the Inited States found woi k waiting for him as soon as he stepped ashore, but the Hood of cheap Continental labour which has pouied into America of late years has changed all that, and now it is too true, as the Bishops say, that 'Many young Inshmen are wasting their lives in idleness, and are diiven to sctk help from public charity far away from home and relatives, in American towns and cities. And many fern ile emigrants, too, have learned to regret that they have abandoned tluir Insh homes, attracted by some bright vision beyond the Atlantic' * The remedy for the present serious state of things to which the Bishops attach most importance is practinlly an application of the principle of ' the land for the people ' which had been laid down by the B shop of Uaphoe in tne <=cl\eme already commented on in these c himns. 'We ha\e set n with satisfaction,' they sa^ , 'the tltoH* pi ide by the Congested Districts Board to hive largo ur.i/mg tracts biokcn up and distributed amongst the tiliers of the soil, and we look to a wider extension ol the^e opiriti ms as a most effectual means of stemming the tide ot emigration. 1 Other measure-, of amelioration are also pointed out, such as the promotion of suitable industries in town and coun'ry, the e-tabhshment of factories aloiv the numerous rivers ot Ireland, and the dur_\ on the pai t ot all classes of Icp <. pl-j o! pi act.c ily eneoui in nig lush n.anuf vCtuu's and i dv tn..- '■>,■ puicliasmg lush-made goods; but dependence i-> p meip 11/pUec-d on the> pioposul lor tin owing the 1 md more widely open tor settle mt nt by the

■ 1 '40 "* people. This policy, however, can only be successfully carried out by adopting the principle of compulsory purchase for which the Irish members are so strongly contending; and that result will only be achieved when the organised forces of the country, Protestant as well as Catholic, have acquired such strength that it will be no longer safe for the Government to refuse their just demand.