The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1912-12-11

cattle disease which locked up our
TAT beasts and our store cattle in Ire
land for so many months, would be
! seen not TO have been "A work Of the
devil but an act Of Divine Providence
which attended to our national com
missariat when we ourselves had been
! negligent The declaration of war to-
morrow would find Ireland stocked
with live stock. 1t would not need
10 worry whether the liners with ba-
con and flour would escape the com
been declared in normal Irish year,
where week by week what we pro-
| duce is exported as soon as il is ready
and week by week we import food
as we require it, then the position Of
ireland would have been perilous in
deed. The agents Of the big British
wholesale houses would have been ont
buying up pigs, poultry, cattle and
sheep in panic for the feeding of big
English towns. In a fortnight our re-
serve stock would have been bought
up and where then would we look to
for supplies for cur own REQUIRE
! ments? The farmer who had sold
ten or twenty beasts at double his
usual prices would have brief pc
riod Of rejoicing, but in a weeks time
! - n
larty, his groce", would be making
MIN pay through the nose for flour
and bacon; and in three or fou~
weeks time perhaps, Mir. Ioriarty
would throw up his hands in despair
and say his shop was cleared out and
ne could get no more from Liver
pool, as the wholesalers there wanted
all they had for English consumption.
ireland has not a long enough purse
high prices. We would come to the
bottom Of our national pocket much
sooner. The international situation is
quite grave enough now and has been
SO this last year or two and is likely
TO grow graver every year while these
| immense military and naval burdens
europe bears go on increasing in
weight, and Ireland ought to consid-
er it's position in great naval war
| in which England was embroiled. We
know dear good people who tell US
| they put their trust in God, but so far
| az We could make out, they trusted
that Providence was not so supernat-
urally wise as to see that what these
| ':ear good people called trust in God
was merely incapacity to get up un-
derstanding Of any problem and dis
inclination to act if they did under
stand, laZiness in fact. Providence,
we firmly believe, has a crown for the
wise and whip for the back of the
fool, and true trust in Providence is
best expressed by wise action The
only good thing Cromwell ever did so
far as Ireland was concerned was TO
leave behind him an aphorism which
II properly cherished and brooded
over by Ireland would do it a lot of
good. He said Put your trust in
God and keep your powder dry" TIE
combination of heaven and earth: is
Irresistible. We want Ireland to put
its trust in God and to stock its lardber
as we'll
We want Ireland to feed itself. as
France does, as Austria does, as Rms
sia does, and as every European coun-
try except England tries to do They
DO so for military reasons as we'll as
for economic, social, and political
reasons. While the British fleet was
preo ominant the military reasons for
ireland being self-supporting were not
go strong. But the fleet of the most
dreaded European power creeps up
rapidly Dreadnought by Dreadnought.
We'll nigh to the naval power of
Great Britain. An alliance with an
other naval power or two might east
ly equallse matters in Il few years
Indeed il is almost certain that the
burden of armaments will become so
lntolerable that one section of powers
or another must, for economic rea-
sons. very soon force a war, in the
nope Of a victory So complete that
only half the military and naVal OK
penditure in future will he neces-
sary. The great nations of Europe
at present are at war, only il is the
silent war Of building ship against ship
rather than the noisy business -
numbering gun against gun. and the
first is the more expensive kind of