New-York tribune., 1880-04-11
PREPARING 70 FLEE.

HARD IIMRs-How TO PROMOTE THE IMMI-
| GRANTS WELFARE.
| lFRoM THE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT oP THE TRIBUEE.l
QUEENSTOWN, March 2O.-EYery vessel that
leaves Queenstown for New-York is carrying as
many emiRrants as our laws allow. An agent Of the
White Star Line told me yesterday that they had
been forced three days ago to refuse to book any
more steerage passengers by the Germanic She
will carry ont nearly LOO emigrants tomorrow.
| The town is full of working and working
| women who have come here to sail for New-York as
soon they can get passage. The prospects arc that
| tho emigration from Ireland this year will be
larger than it has been in any one year since the
famine of 1947. II the coming Summer should be
rs wei as last Summer, and the potato crop shonld
fail again. the West of Ireland will be almost de-
populated next Spring. and then the City of New
York will be forced to face the question: What
shall we do with our surplus laborf For, although
nine-tenths of these emigrants are country folks,
knowing only how to do farm-work, they viii be
compelled to remain in the city either from the
want OF means to go any further or from ignorance
| (when they have little money! of where to 60 and
| how.
What shall we do with them-what will the effect
| be on American and Irish-American labor If the
coming host shall remain in New-YOrk Cityf Al
though the discussion of social and political prob
lens belongs to the province Of the editor, and is no
part of the duty of special correspondent shall
ask Won to permit mo to make use Of some Of the
knowledge of Irish character that have gained
over here to throw a little light a discussion
that sooner or later will be of vital Importance to
| the citizens of our metropolis.
Workngmen in the West of Ireland regard fifty
cents a day as good wages. They will work for
shling-or twenty-five cents-a day and be CRATE
ful for the chance. Servant girls at hotels twhere
| ho4F In fon,
ceiye from ca $500 TO f8 $40 year. Forty dol
lars year secures the best class Of housemaids.
The working girls of Ireland, almost without regard
TO lOcality-in the East well as in the West and
Southland anxious to emigrate to America. COM
mon phrase with them, in speaking OF their
present lot is. =" We are. only wasting our time
| hereD | made inquiries from all sorts OF people
from different parts Of Ireland about this subject,
and the uniform reply received was that nothing
but poverty kept any servant girl in Ireland. II
there a system OF free emigration to America
as there is to New-Zealand, the Irish question:
would be sOlved-for England-by the exodus of
the mothers of the next generation. But even
without free emigration, the high rates of rent the
failure of the crops, the introduction of American
agricultural implements into England. and, more
than all the American competition in agricultural
emigration Of the Irish TO America that nothing in
the past history Of either country can parallel:
American reapers and moving machines 10 England
are rendering unnecessary, more and more every
year. the employment OF the West Of Ireland labor
ers to harvest tho crops there; and it Is the wages
that the people of Mayo. Donegal and Galway and
the islands have received in England, as farm labor
ers, that haye enabled them to pay their rents for
generation past. Again, the English farmers, suf-
tering from American competition as well as from
high rents, are no longer able TO pay so well for
whatever Irish help they employ.
This fact will force thousands TO omigrate. There
is still another reason--less thought of-that is
likely to increase the exodus of the Irish. The ris
ing generation of higher type. class, than
the generation that is passing away. The national
and parOchial schools. now generally established,
have taught them to read 1t has opened to them
the wide field Of modern knowledge and thought
and it has rendered them inpatient of the wrongs
and irregularities that their fathers suffered under
and reLelled aganst-albeit. for the most
part, with zeal without wisdom. It
is significant fact that their favOrite
leaders no longer appeal to the past "glories
of Erin p that they rarely indulge in what we call
spread-eagle Oratory-but that they quote John
Stuart Mill and Adam Smith, and talk of "the
teachings Of political economy" Thke Davitt and
Ferguson and Brennan and Loudon-fOur Of the
most radical men amoug the young aud rising lead
ers of Ireland. II had shut my eyes when heard
them speak. should have thought that | IN
New-Engla gland-there was so little Barney In
their talk, little effort to arouse the emo
tions or patriotic fery9r, SO much solid hard
OF their audiences Now, the young people, although
ardent lovers of their native land, see clearly what
their fathers refused to see-nOt only the stubborn
SO they prefer to seek the liberty that education
has rendered essential TO their life in o country
where neither their race their religion re-
garded as ample and self-convincing juSt6catiOns
for the injustice that they resent but cannot over
throw.
Now if the Irish laborers continue to go over In
vast mutitudes to America and settle down in the
great cities Of the East, the first effect win be to
lower the wages of all thu Irish-Amerioan laborers
of both sexes now there to the starvation level OF
Ireland. The supply of unskilled labor will so
greatly exceed the demand for it that pauperism
will be greatly increased, and the East Side of
NewYork will rival in its misery the Western slopes
of Connemnra. For, as regards city labor all Of
these emigrants arc unskllled. When wages are low
in New-York, when there countless numbers
of unsklled laborers Of both sexes unemployed. |
what is the effect IN the public morals Paupersm
will not be the only evil that shall be forced to
consider or to pay for in increased taxation.
There is no trait stronger in the character of the
West of Ireland peasant than his love for land
Compared to 1t the "AnQlo-Saxen land-hunger" "
that we read about in English books is the satiated
nibblinR of epicurean dyspeptic. Why is it that
these same peasants when they come to America |
hang about the cities, and Tester foul tenement
houses, and cannot DO coaxed to go into the coun
try 7 / never could understand 1t in America |
1t Is open secret in the West Of
Ireland. Travel in friendly, companion
snip WIN tuo PIiSSeo tneu
parishes of q Sunday-or any daV, indeed. but es-
pecialy Of Sunday y-and the secret Is printed on |
every PEASANTS face, wherever you meet him or her.
These people Catholics, and lrishmen and peas
ants-all three IN one, and not in name only not |
Catholics most of our countrymen are Protest |
ants for example, but with the same passionate de-
yotion with which the boys in blue were Americans
or the boys In gray were SouthernerS. Unless we |
take these three faots of the emigrantS character
into our reckoning, we shall never understand how
TO deal with the coming Irish problem IN America.
First of oil, they are peasants. They do not re-
sent that designation as an American would resent
it-for O'Connell never pleased them more than
when he called them "the finest peasantry In Eu-