The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-11-14

employment to thousands, are now de- serted. In every Irish city one finds the larger part of the business con- trolfed by foreign agencies. Even in tn limited manufacturing industries which still exist, many of the most in- portant put ban on the employment of Irishmen, if Catholics in any impor- tant position.
 The professions offer a surprisingly small field in Ireland compared with America or England. A recent return showed total number of medical prac- 1 titioners at little over thirty-two hun dred in population as large as that of Pennsylvania. It is safe to say an l Ameican community twould give profit able employment to eight times the number. Nevertheless, the average in- \ comes of Irish doctors are very small. 1 The legal profession, is exercised ! without Government appointments of some kind, is even less promising than the medical. The courts are almost empty of business, and it is suggestive 1 to visit the Four Courts any day and note the petty character of the disputes which occupy the twelve Superior l Judges, whose salaries average s20.0G0 each. It looks as though the whole amount of the civil claims adjudicated I in each year were less than the amounts paid to the Judges alone. To win a profitable income at the bar by l simple talent seems almost impossible { in Ireland to-day. It is certainly much \ rarer than it was fifty or hundred years ago, and the professional charac- ter of the Irish bar has fallen accord ingly. Still the cost of admission either l to the legal or medical profession in | Ireland is higher both in time and rnon- ey than anywhere in the United States. l Whether this be an evil or a good it Is ! not necessary to discuss here. It is on- l ly mentioned as an illustration of the difficulties In the way of finding ern- l ployment which confront Irishnen of the present day in Ireland more than 1 in other lands.
 For art of literature as profitable pro- ] fessions there has been literally no e1- couragemene in Ireland during the last l forty years. Such as elect to pursue | them as means of living are forced to l emigrate of necessity. The press alone | furnishes some employment but it is l not Of a character to attract bright fn- l tellects in any number. A journal of 1 the standing of the old Dublin Nation ! would be impossible in Ireland at the 1 present moment.
 l Ireland is the one country in the civil 1 lized world whose population is dwind- 1 ling, and it has been diminishing with l out respite for nearly sixty years. 1 Roughly reckoning, when Victoria as- 1 cended the throne the Irish formed one- ! third of the population of the British 1 Islands To-day those in Ireland are 1 scarcely one-eight of the total. The 1 growth on one side of the Irish Sea and the decrease on the other have been go- 1 ing on for well nigh sixty years, and they still continue. Until that condi- i ton ceas-r t is idle to speak of any l prosperity for Irland or the Irish peo- pie within it's border.
 What makes tie depopulation of Ire- land more remarkable is that every l other European land has steadily gain- ed during the last sixty years. Switz-
 erland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain,
 Russia and even Turkey are all more
 populous now than fifty years ago. Even the so-called Kingdom of Poland,
 which shares with Ireland the disad- vantages of foreign rule, has doubled its population and more than quard- rupled it's wealth since 1S41 Ireland
 then numbered eight millions and Po- l land little over four. At the present
 day the Kingdom of Poland has eight
 millions and Ireland less than five. The Polish provinces under Prussian rule
 have nearly doubled their population in the same period, despite hostile leg
 islation on the part of the German
 rulers and very considerable emigra-
 ton. Even the Christian provinces un-
 der the Sultan's rule in Europe have
 grown in inhabitants, while Ireland as
 been depopulated during a continuous period of more than fifty years
 The famine caused by the potato dis
 ease continued three years, but its ces-
 sation with 184S brought no stop to the
 decrease in the population of Ireland, It had fallen to six and a half millions
 in 1851; it was only five and three
 quarter millions one hundred and fifty
 thousand in 1881, under five millions at
 the close of the next decade and little
 over four and a half millions at the
 close of the century. The decrease still
 continues, and one of the characteristic
 scenes of Irish life witnessed by King
 Edward on his visit to Cork was the de-
 parture of tug from Queenstown lad
 en with Irish emigrants for the United
 States. The King is said to have been
 much struck by the sight.
 T The lack of capital in Ireland as com.
 pared with ether English speaking