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

HOW It Appears to an Irishman Who Visits It After Twenty Years Absence.
 It was after an interval of twenty years that the writer of these remarks revisited Ireland this past summer.
 That period has passed since he first quilted his native land to begin the struggle of life in distant one. The question inevitably forces itself on the returning Irishman whether the new generation has advanced, morally, irl- tellectually and materially, beyond the generation of Irishmen which was young with himself more than twenty
 golden years ago. Further, he is drawn to compare the Ireland he finds him.
 self in to-day with other lands at pre-
 sent whose condition is even more fa-
 miliar to him than the recollection of young manhood in his native land.
 In material wealth, in public works and buildings and the hum of commer-
 cial activity, modern Ireland is far in- deed behind New York or Pennsysva- mia or California. The older parts of Dublin and Cork or Limerick have
 scarcely changed their appearance in forty years; indeed, their principal bildings date back beyond the century just ended. An examination of the nu-
 merous public edifices of Dublin, its
 courts of the law, it's custom house, it's
 national bank, it's cathedrals, reveals the strange fact that more than nine- tenths of those in the first class date from the eighteenth century, before the Union.
 In manufactures and business activ- ity the contrast Is even more noticeable between America anH Ireland. There Is a fair amou.. of bLpiness activity in the streets of the larger cities, but few
 great establishments and fewer manu- factures. One is struck by the number | of foreign agencies in the business streets, and also by the numerous de- serted factories and mills, through the south especially, which point to former | industries gone out of existence. There | is a little evidence of new ones arising to take their place, and, generally speaking the commercial prosperity of | Ireland, compared with that of most
 American communities, is small indeed One Is struck, however, at landing | in Cork or Dublin from America, by the cheerful and contented look on most | faces. The workingmen may be poorer 1 than their brethren in America or Eng. | land, but if their faces can be trusted | they seem decidedly happier. A fins J Sunday in Dublin is a revelation oi 1 orderly enjoyment on the part of al
 classes that can hardly be parallele6 l elsewhere. Quarrelling and rowdyisn
 seem unknown, though the interest 1T
 outdoor sports is of the keenest, The
 general kindly civility of the popula.
 tion is remarkable, and especially the
 absence of the profanity and fndecency
 in speech which one hears so constant 1 ly in American cities.
 The absence of manufacturing ol
 commercial industries in the country | itself deprives the Irish farmer ol farmland of any chance of other en1' ! ployment except at the price of ex. 1 patriation. The factories that exis are already supplied with operatives l and few new ones have been begun 1 The shipbuilding and linen trade O. 1 Ulster, the tweeds and Serges of Nun [ ster and the other Irish manufactures are too small to supply work for sur i plus farm labor from the country. A
 most they can barely provide for thos,
 already engaged in them. Irish manu 1 factures, like the Irish population, havt been steadily dwindling during the las
 sixty years, and, in fact their decay be
 gan somewhat earlier. Everywher'
 through the land one notes deserted
 mills and factories. The shipyards c Dublin and Portlaw, which once gav'