The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-07-26

| leClulSs the eu1tOr Oh -tHS IuOi4AA
/ Weekly Freeman writes thus:
DR. Mcdonald, in whatever specula-
tons he may indulge, tries hard to
come close to the facts and to face
| things as they are. His paper on
Emigration is marked by this charac-
ter. He sees clearly that unless there
| is a great change in Irish social condi-
tons the cry of stay at home will
have no meaning to the Irish emf
grant. Until things are more equal
! lied that drain will go on; and it is
| idle merely to declaim against it. The
diminution of emigration that we have
recently witnessed is no real diminu-
ton. 1t is a decline merely proper
tionate to the decline in the popula-
| ton, and not even proportionate to the
decline in the natural rate of increase
of the Irish people in Ireland. DR..
Mcdonald is, so far, therefore. in rec
ognizing the fact that for time, at
least. the tide will continue flowing;
and for time also it is proper to con-
slider the causes of the failure and loss
OF SO many Irish emigrants in the new
countries. His appeal for correction
or those defects of Irish character,
those sins against industry and social
progress rather than against the theo-
logical virtues, defects begotten in the
slavery of the past, is to the point
But the critics of DR.. McDonald's pa
per, who found It lacking in sugges-
tions for the stay of emigration, had
some grounds for the criticism.
There was Il good deal in Canon
McCartan's objection that the paper
might have been entitled instructions
to Emigrants.' The lecturer was less
suggestive about the care for emigra-
ton that about the improvement of
the emigrant. Too little attention was
paid to the latter in the past; but the
other problem is even more urgent. if
emigration is not to be ended by the
worst of all ends, the fact that there
are no more emigrants to go It was
to this side of the question that the
Bishop of Raphoe, Clonfert. and Ross
directed their speeches. They do not
propose merely either to cry Stay at
nome, or Improve yourselves and go;
they propose to give the people real
choice between life at home and life in
America and Australia"
The present rate of Irish emigration
is truly alarming 1t might be 1ustly
styled "a national exodus" rather than
an emigration" The bravest and the
best of Ireland's youths and maidens,
the nucleus of her health and strength.
the farmers stalwart sons and comely
daughters are yearly fiocking in their
thousands and tens of thousands from
her ports. to seek a home and a liveli-
hood in stranger lands. We hold our
breath while statistics tell us that no
fewer than 10000 of young Irish men
and women sailed across the Atlantic
to foreign countries during the year
1901; and yet we are assured that this
is diminutien of the exodus of past
years. Such drainage is enough TO
threaten the national life of the most
populous. extensive and prosperous ma
ton in the world. How much more.
then, does it threaten the national life
of the Emerald Isle" which from aear
seems only speck on the crest of the
ocean. The wonder is that Ireland
still is Irish.
While, thus amazed, we gaze at the
result, we naturally inquire after the
cause. Is this result brought about by
fortune dreamers, who always see
longer horns on the COWS that are far
away than on those at home?" No;
the Irish emigrant will tell you now as
he did of old:
"They say there's bread and work for
all,
And the sun shines always there;
But I'll mot forget old Ireland,
Were it fifty times as fair"
No; it is the result of enforced pov-
erty-poverty enforced by a govern
ment which stops at no means, how
ever cruel and barbarous, in its efforts
to subject a people to a civilization
inferior to, more modern but less Chris
tian than their own-poverty enforced
by feudal system of landlordism
which has sucked the life's blood in
the form of ''rack-rent'' from the
Irish farmer, until there is no alternate
left him but to abandon the home of
his forefathers in agonies of despair.
Listen again to the Freeman's Editor,
while he pictures the present condi-
tions of farmers in Ireland, and pro-
claims the true cause of emigration:
THE means of staying the tire of en-
igration is at hand in the empty graz
ing lands. There are ranches in Con-
naught as well as in Texas. And we
would add that there is work for the
laborer on the dairy farms of Munster
as well as on the wheat lands of Mani
toba, if the farmer could afford to pay
him. One of those Illuminating Irish
blue books, which hardly anybody ever
reads, but which throw a flood of light
on such questions as that dealt with by
DR.. Mcdonald, was published ten or
twelve years ago on the condition of
the Irish agricultural laborer The as
sistant commissioner, who described
the condition of things in Munster,
noted two evils existing side by side.
On the one side was fertile land de-
teriorating, drains becoming choked,
hedges overgroWn, weeds and furZe
fighting with the buttercups for exist
ence on the farms: on the other was
the hopeless laborer, unable even to
get employment at, shillings a week
for half a year. There was no means
to bring the two together. Agricultur-
al depression it was explained, had SO
reduced the capital available for the
cultivation of the land that the farm
or, however intelligent, and however
anxious to give work to the laborer, had
not the means. Yet there were land
courts IN existence then in Munster /