The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-02-21
THE ENGLISH SIDE OF IRELAND.

Ireland, in it's outer aspect, begins
 to look a little more like England as one leaves Enniskillen, heading north.
 We have passed from the land of bare footed women, shawls, and novels into the land of boots, hats and decent looking cottages; from region of bleak, stony, unkempt desolation into
 one where life looks possible and the
 soil is not ungrateful; from CatAolic and agricultural Ireland to the Ireland
 which is industrial in spirit, Protest ant in religion, and superlatively sue
 cessful in the affairs of business. One was, of course, prepared for the con@ trast; one is, perhaps, a little to eager in detecting the signs of it. But it is impossible, even with no more to go
 upon than an occasional hasty glance from the railway train, not to be con- scious of a difference, of a new neat ness and finish in the countryside, and of a hundred and one small tok- ems of higher and more assured stan dards. One gets, as I said, the impress | sions of something more nearly ap- proximating England than the Ireland of the south or west Bright, clean and busy, Londonderry, with it's gallant memories, makes a warm and stirring Impression. Here and at last one gets in touch once more with community of self-reliant, thriving, progressive men. The mere sight, as one enters the depot, of a huge and admirably
 planned factory, heartens one. Derry, of course, is known all over the world for It's shirt industry, which employs more than 10000 people, mostly women, in the city itself, and many
 thousands more in the countryside round about, and pays out every year at least $1,50O,OOO in wages. went over one of the two largest factories and saw the hundred and one proc esses that go into the making of shirts and collars that one puts on
 without though of how they came to be what they are. Better or defter
 workers one could not wish for than these Irish girls and women, and they have need of all their cleverness if their employers are to be kept on a level with their competitors An patterns and designs and turns out shirts and collars by the hundred l thousand of uniform size and shape. No such simple way of doing things is open to the Derry manufacturer. Sup plying pretty nearly the whole of the British Empire with shirts and col lars, he has to bow to local ideas of taste, and to the requirements of local fashion. The retail dealers in Lon don, or Birmingham, or Melbourne, so far from being willing to take mere- lywhat he gives them, insist on his manufacturing to suit their special needs. This means the employment of a very large high grade of labor and Of a large plant wholly given up to fill 1 ing these individual and varying ord CTS. And the curious part of it is that for these services the Derry manufac- turer gets no public kudos or reputa- 1 tion whatever. Neither his name nor his trade mark appears on his goods; and the only name and trade mark that do appear are those of the local dealer, who poses as a shirt and collar manufacturer when really he is only wholesale customer of a Derry firm. Thus it comes about that the ordinary wearer of shirts and collars never even hears the name of their true man. ufacturer. An hours run by tran from Derry brings you to Portrush, the only really bracing place 1 have found in Ireland and the starting point for the inevitable trip to the Giant s Causeway, Portrush is built on lit- tie promontory that juts out into the North Channel,and all who care for golf and bathing and sea fishing may come here and take their fill It is a
 watering place that will grow; it is the only spot on which I have felt tempted to invest in Irish real estate. The only objection against, it is that the Giants Causeway lies only~ eight miles away and you have, therefore, no excuse for not going to that gide- infested, overrated den of thieves. The thing, l suppose, has to be done l-once; but those who have the moral courage to withstand it may feel re- warded by knowing that they can see all there is to see from photographs ISydney Brooks in Harper's Weekly.