THE IRISH ABROAD

New Zealand Tablet, 10 April 1913, Page 15

THE IRISH ABROAD

WHAT THEY HAVE DONE ' Self-governing Canada'. was the title of a very interesting lecture delivered, in' the Mansion House, Dublin, recently, by the Hon. P. A. O'Farrell, of Canada. Mr. O'Farrell, in the course of his introductory remarks, held that it was an exceedingly important thing that the people of Ireland, who were at the dawn of a new and glorious epoch in the history of their country, should learn something about the genius of their countrymen not alone in Canada, but on the American Continent. At the outset, therefore, he wanted to impress upon their minds the great fact that there was no race in the world— race of whose history they knew, that had within itself the potentialities of that wonderful old Irish race of theirs. He had, he said, sometimes heard his friends in America, in England, in Australia, and even in Ireland, whisper that the achievements of the Irish race were due to their having been inoculated with Anglo-Saxon blood. 'I do not believe that,' Mr.. O'Farrell asserted. Mission of the Irish Race. Disclaiming any, idea of talking politics, the lecturer continued that he had always held wherever he had been that the blood of the Irish Celt was the purest and the best and most glorious blood in the world. Men had said to him in Australia that the Irish had never shown a capacity to govern themselves. In the most glorious days of Irish history the Irish race were the apostles and the teachers and educators of the whole civilised world, and it was his ambition and his dream that the day was coming again when the apostles, the teachers who would go forth to enlighten the world, would come chiefly from Ireland. The people of Canada and of the United States, who knew things, expected that when Ireland had self-government, and was ruled by the genius and the spirit of her own people, she would be the nursery of "the learning and the virtue and the education of the world. There was not a State in the American Union from the Atlantic to the Pacific where the genius and energy of Ireland had not shown itself. There were one hundred millions of people in the Great Republic watching and waiting anxiously to see the end of the great struggle of the Irish people for freedom, and when that day came there would be an end forever to the fierce bitterness not only of the Irish race in America with the British Empire, but the United States itself would be the friend, of England. Then, and only then, would the English-speaking world be united, and that unity was necessary, in his judgment, not only for England and for the United States, but necessary for the preservation of Christianity itself. There were things developing on the Asiatic Continent that would compel the Christian nations of the world sooner or later to unite. A Retrospect. In the course of a brief retrospect of Canadian and American history, the lecturer traced the adventures of Champlain, La Salle, and others. Champlain it was who laid the foundation of the city of Quebec, and •about forty-five years later, in 1641, a few French soldiers, priests and nuns landed on the island of Montreal and founded a city which was now the richest Catholic city in the world. There were more beautiful churches, more extensive convents, more excellent colleges, and more loyal Catholic people in Montreal than anvwhere else in the world. In fact, there was no more Catholic people. They formed 80 per cent, of the population, and the Province of Quebec, of which Montreal was the capital, had a population of which over 80 per cent, was Catholic. It had absolute Home Rule of its own. Religious Tolerance. It was completely controlled by the French-Canadian people, and never had a single complaint on the part of the Protestant minority there been heard that their rights, their property, or their liberties were in any

form or manner constrained. In the Province of Ontario amongst the earlier settlers were the people from the United States who were dissatisfied with the Revolution. These people emigrated to what was now Ontario. A great many of them were from the North of Ireland. They were an excellent body of men, and they were the nucleus of the population of the province. About 80 per cent, of the people of the province are non-Catholic, but under the Government there Catholic schools and colleges and Catholic office-holders got just as much liberty and were treated just as fairly and as generously as non-Catholics were treated in Quebec. French Discoverers. Great Frenchmen like La Salle and Champlain had given to France a glorious empire and a magnificent opportunity, and France lost it because of the stupidity, the incompetence, and the conceit and pride of the rulers of France, and the genius of Pitt gave it to England. In 1867 the Dominion of Canada was formed, and one of the men who helped to form that Dominion of Canada was the famous D'Arcy McGhee. It was his eloquence and his genius that had inspired that movement, and his name would go down for ever amon°the great and honored names of Canada—along with the names of two great Scotsmen, Sir John McDonald and Mackenzie, and the name of another great Irishman, unknown to Ireland—Frank Smith. They in Ireland did not know what great names they had in the American Continent to be proud of. In his (Mr. O'Farrell's) judgment and experience there was no genius for affairs greater than the genius of the Irish people. He had been told, ' You know that the people in the South of Ireland have no business talent all the business talent of Ireland is in Belfast' (laughter). He was not going to say a word against Belfast. He was proud of Belfast, too. Transportation was one of the most important things to a nation. Without good and sufficient transportation they could not collect their goods or distribute them, and they could not travel. America and Canada lead the world in transportation—in the building of railroads and canals. Irishmen as Railroad Constructors. .The extraordinary thing was this—that all the great railroads of America and of Canada that had been efficiently and well built had been engineered and constructed by Irishmen, or the sons of Irishmen. The most wonderful engineering feat perhaps in the world was the underground railroad of New York. It was a marvellous feat. It was built by John McDonnell, a native of his own county of Cork, and one of the truest and dearest Irishmen he had ever known. At the present moment the guiding genius of the great Canadian .Pacific Railroad, a man whose financial ability and constructive talents were recognised all over the United States bore the simple Irish name of John Farrell He was the president of one of the great Union Pacific systems, and was recognised as the genius of geniuses among the railroad presidents of America. The President of the American company known as the Steel Trust, which had a capitalised vafue of 300 millions sterling, and which earned ten million pounds a year was another John Farrell. The wife of another railroad president, J. J. Hill, the President of the Great Northern Railway, and of a number of other railroads was an Irishwoman, who was one of the greatest women that the world has ever produced. She had induced her husband to contribute about a million sterling for J. the hmg e of schools and colleges and churches around i the Falls of St. Anthony, where two great cities had arisen—Minneapolis and St. Paul. A Great Irish-American Prelate. There was a great and famous man in St. PaulArchbishop Ireland. He was born in Kilkenny and went to America about the time of the Civil War and was chaplain of an Irish-American regiment during the war. He was afterwards consecrated a bishon. Hp h*rf since built colleges and universities with the aid of Mrs. J J. Hill, and he had sub-divided the empire oyer which he once had spiritual jurisdiction into 26 bishoprics. There was no name in the United States to-day more loved and honored than that of Archbishop

Ireland. In the great cities of Australia and the United States the principal cathedral was named after St. Patrick. That in New York was one of the most glorious in the world, and was one of which every American was proud. A Great Irish-Canadian. Referring to Sir Thos. Shaughnessy, Mr. O'Farrell said his mother was born in Killarney and his father in Newcastle West. To-day there was no name in the financial world that had the splendid reputation. of Sir Thomas Shaughnessy. As an executive genius, and as a railway transportation genius, he had no equal. Tney heard a great deal about Morgan and Rockefeller, and Carnegie, and the Rothschilds. As a financial genius, a man of integrity, capacity, and good judgment, Shaughnessy surpassed them all. ° " ° Seventy years ago the maximum gold production of the world was only a million a year. To-day it was 100 millions, and this output was changing the whole commerce of the world. The men who had mainly most to do with the development of the mineral industry of the world, whether in gold, silver, copper or lead, were men not only of Irish descent, but of Irish birth. This was true of Australia. It was pre-eminently true of Canada, and it was still more true of the United States. In this connection Mr. O'Farrell instanced the names of John Mackey and Marcus Daly in America. In the engineering world he named John Stephens and John J. Sullivan, the men who organised the construction of the Panama Canal, as amongst the foremost engineers of to-day. Sullivan, too, was Chief Engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and was recognised as one of the ablest men in his business in America, and had no peer in any continent. Other leading Irishmen in America and Canada were Peter Collier, one of the greatest publishers; Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, the Chief Justice of Canada, as good an Irishman as Ireland ever produced; and Frank Anglin, next in station in the Canadian Judiciary, who was prominent in everything for the good of Canada, of Ireland, and of religion. In speaking of the Canadian Judiciary, it was interesting to note that the maximum salary of provincial judges there was £IOOO a year, and for that sum +he Bench was manned by men whose integrity, honor, and capacity could not be excelled in the British Empire. When they came to put their house in order in Ireland it would be worth their while to study the judiciary of Canada. In conclusion, the lecturer said that the Irish exiles were doing the world's work abroad. In the United SFates they were elevating, .purifying, and ennobling the whole of the Republic. He had told his friends in England and in Ireland that with regard to the bishops and priests of the United States there never lived on earth since the days of the Apostles a more wonderful, a better or more apostolic body of men.