The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-07-06
sPxR1T or rHu PRnss.
Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
upon Current Topics-CompiledE Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
The STORY OF LABOR AND TRADE IN
IRELAND,
From the N. 7. Herald.

lhEbhND.
From the N. T. Herald.
The great trade strike in Cork, based as it is
upon the action and influence of number of
labor unions combining together to exclude
competition from their line of industry, is a
sad illustration of the fact how intelligent
men, when blinded by prejudice and carried
away by unrefecting excitement, may forget
the lessons that the history of their own
country affords No community on earth has
been SO victimized by arbitrary and violent
action against her skill and workmanship as
Ireland. Two hundred years ago the fame of
her woolen manufacture was heard all over
Europe. The products of the Irish loom were
sent to all the north countries, and even to
France, Spain, and Portugal, whence came
profusion of wines, fruits, oils and silks in
return with host Of other commodities that
beautifed the Irish homes of other days and
encouraged in the Irish gentry the refined
tastes which, amid all the misfortunes of their
native land, they still retain. The French
Government even gave Irish manufacturers
standing contracts, by which they furnished
the peculiar kind of cloth that was used for
its army wear
Says Swift in his instructive Letters; =
'The condition of our trade was glorious and
hourishing. At that time the cur
rent money of Ireland was foreign silver. A
man could hardly receive one hundred pounds
Northern powers and of every prince of the
German empire among them.
But in 1896 the manufacturers OF Bristol
England, Jealous of this beautiful Irish pros
perity, petitioned tho King, complaining that
''the cheapness of provisions in Ireland, the
advantages of water-power and the goodness
of the climate doth invite over his Maiestys
subjects to settle there, and if a stop be not
put to it by Legislative enactment that coun-
try Greland) would possess itself of the chief
trade of the empire" To this the King re-
piled that he would ''do all in his power to
discourage the woollen trade of Ireland" On
June 8, 1898, both houses of Pa arliament ad-
dressed the King on the same subject, and
referred especially to the excellence of the
material as ono great cause of Irish success.
Finally the act of 10th and 1lth of Will
liam III was passed, prohibiting the
export of wool and woollen manufac-
lures from Ireland under penalty of
forfeiture of goods and ship and five hundred
pounds sterling fine. The expectation of
fuller's earth, so necessary in the manufac-
ture of cloth, was prohibited in England, and
the Irish trade was thus additionally crippled
Twenty-Five embargo laws were subsequently
passed in forty years, and all Irish merchants,
whether Catholic or Protestant, were abso-
lutely prohibited from importing or exporting
anything excepting directly from or to British
merchants resident in England, the goods to
be conveyed exclusively in British built yes
sells. These laws drove out of Ireland forty
two Thousand families, or about two hundred
thousand people, for one-tenth of the whole
population had been engaged in the woollen
manufacture. They fed to the Continent, and
were received with open arms, particularly in
Germany, whose children are now so harshly
met at the Irish threshold with disorders,
fomented, as investigation would more than
likely show, by agents not of Irish birth, but
ries are now agitating France From that
moment Irish trade and manufactures dwin-
died out, until, III 1882, Ireland began to feel
the delight of self-government through q
Parliament of her own, and from that time
on, to use the expressive language of Lord
Glare, ''no nation on the habitable globe ad-
vanoed in culture, commerce, and manufac-
lures with the same rapidity as Ireland from
1882 to 1900" Artisans Hocked in from all
neighboring nations and were we'll employees
population rose from three to five millions
and the wages of labor doubled and trebled
In Dublin five thousand carpenters were busy
few years ago there were but hve hundred.
In the same city were over fifteen thousand
silk weavers, and lately there were but three
hundred, although the city is now twice its
former size. The magnificence of Dublin
the wealth and elegant display of its resident
gentry, and the rich splendor OF it's architec
ture, became the wonder of the most distin
guished visitors from England and the Cont
nent. Yet even all this material grandeur
was eclipsed by the genius of her orators
her statesmen, her philosophers, poets, and
patriots, who made that brief periot
memorable forevermore in Irish an
nals But this gorgeous picture O
prosperity faded away again when Ireland los
the last semblance of her independence, ant
trade went down so low and its decline pro
duced SO fierce q competition among tn,
many half-starving workmen that in 1888
when Daniel O'Connell the 'liberator" anC
the true friend OF Ireland, denounced tn,
outrages that had been committed by tn,
trades, and rebuked them openly at thei
great meeting held in the Royal Exchange il
Dublin, he only narrowly escaped with hi
life from the infuriated leaders. Indeed, h.
had to be escorted to his residence bya bod,
of police and mounted guardsmen. Alas
Irish brain had been poisoned by the leavel
that was at work to divide, PROSTATE ant
conquer Irish nationality.
Mr. OConneli, in terms of the most com
nanding argument and eloquence, showet
the utter fallscy of the violent and oppressiv
trades movement, and pictured the dissen
sion, the hatreds, the tyranny and the weak
ness that must inevitably follow. The sa
history of Irelands after years remains t.
prove how right he was.
We might point out the changes, and, il
certain places, the development that ha
come in the very latest years. These, how
ever, may furnish us a theme for futur
treatment. But as we look around us W
behold on every side the faces of Ireland
exiles, and each day read the record of tn
thousands that still prefer tempting the dee
and the long uncertainties of life beyond
wide and stormy ocean to the tender nercie
e IL. LII. L.. i.