The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1866-11-10 00:00:00

IRELAND AT THE PRESENT TIME.

(From the London Times.)

Nobody can deny that, whatever be the cause, the
situation of Ireland is at the present moment— as it
always has been—most disappointing and most un-
satisfactory. We have not the leant wish to under-
state the case. It is but two hundred and fifty years
since the King of Scotland succeeded to the throne of
England, and the Union between the two countries is
perfect, absolute, and irrevocable. It is seven hundred
years since the Norman conquerors of England carried
their victorious arms to Ireland, only a hundred years
later than our own conquest by the same Power, and
yet we can claim very little success for our efforts to
unite England and Ireland into one nation. Not
merely are the two peoples still markedly separate and
distinct; there is n, doubt that the English are re-
garded with aversion by a very large number of their
Irish fellow-subjects. Had a Fenian force been landed
on our shores last year,we are forbidden to doubt,humilb
ating as the confession may he to our pride, that at least
from the peasantry of Ireland they would have met with
no inconsiderable countenance and assistance. Seven
hundred years have not sufficed to wean the Irish
from their animosities of race, or to induce them to
accept, as an equivalent for union with one of the
first countries in the world, the great material advan-
tages we have to offer. We have an almost boundless
carrying trade, but in that lucrative occupation Ireland
takes little or no part. We have manufactures which
are perpetually augmenting our wealth and increasing
the comfort of our population, but these manufac-
tures have either never been introduced into Ireland
at all, or when introduced have perished under the
influence of strikes and combinations. A numerous
and hardy race of fishermen support themselves
in England and Scotland by the deep-sea fisheries.
The fisheries of Ireland are fully equal to the
fisheries of England and Scotland, but that source
of wealth passes by her (bores uncaptured and
unappropriated. A large portion of the land of
Ireland lies uncultivated, it is covered by swamps,
the only use of which seems to be to supply the people
with fuel, and even that resource is in many places
beginning to fail. The population of Ireland is dimin-
ishing most rapidly by emigration, not principally to
our own colonies, but to a rival, and what may one day
be a hostile State, and it carries with it an undying
love for the land of its birth, and an equally vehement
hatred for the race whose oppressions it is taught to
believe have driven it out. The agriculture of Ireland
is undoubtedly improving, wages are higher, the
people are better fed and clothed, and there is a
marked improvement in their dwellings, but these
things, instead of making them happier and more con.
tented only seem to make her inhabitants more dis-
satisfied with their lot Ireland has a well-planned
network of railways, but the poverty of the country
and the mismanagement of the directors have re-
duced most of them to a state bordering on insolvency.
The increasing intercourse with America seems to
point out Ireland as a natural depot between the
Old World and the New, but it has been found impoe-
sible, even with extravagant subsidies, to keep up a
line of steamers from an Irish port, and Ireland has
only the barren honour of supporting on her surface a
portion of the telegraph that links the Old World with