Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-05-04

sound and commercially impossible, they
said, taking much the same position as
Cy and Maria when they stood looking
at their first locomotive. Cy said,
They'll never start her" Maria said,
They never will" After the train had
gone around q curve and Cy and Maria
had pulled up out of breath after run
never stop her." and Maria said, They
never will" Irish doubters have been
in the "They'll-never-start- stage.
but now they are getting ready to get
into the They l-never-stop-her" stage,
with the Shannon power actually light
ing Dublin and the new lines quite
rapidly being stretched into 200 towns.
Seen As Courageous Gesture"
Thus the Shannon scheme in its
early beginnings was at least a cour-
ageous gesture to the world proclaim
ing an ireland observation-disclosures that
the Irish believed in themselves as a
nation with future. Now, in the usual
Irish fashion-hind side before-it is
about to provide psychological tonic
for the Irish themselves.
This great waterpower generating
system, which q German contractor
built. has cost $26, 100000 In order to
use the current generated, the current
consumption In the Free State will have
to be about doubled. To make 1t as easy
as possible for the Irish farmer to pay
for an electric installation, the Irish
Electricity Board, deceutralized con-
troll board set up by the government
has instituted the scheme OF nothing
down and 10 years to pay" Appliances
also can be had on deferred terms.
One can conjure up all sorts Of visions
Of q comfortable Ireland with electric
power. Rural industries! There are q
number Of them still in existence, scat
tered throughout the rs counties
homespun woolens, lace, bog oak carved
novelties, not to mention poteen (con-
traband Irish whiSky)l
TO keep unimpaired that lovely
rough, enduring quality Of homespun
and home-woven Irish wooden cloth Is
quite impossible when an electric motor
drives the chuttle, but Harris tweeds
from the power looms of the islanders
north Of Scotland have q considerable
vogue, much as have the lovely ORR
entail rugs now similarly made in the
East. Then, too, scattered over the
countryside, much as in New England,
are old water-wheel mills. many of
them empty. Electrified, they might
his wife and family, turning out stand
ard parts of this or that for assembly
in Dublin or Cork.
Sea Weed Of Possible Value.
Kelp q sea weed, produces iodine
when burned In a very crude fashion on
the west coast. Whether electrifcation
and the application of modern meth
DDS to this strange occupation would be
practical is a question. What sport-to
burn up weeds at a profitl
Most Of all. the question arises as to
how far and how rapidly the great
Irish basic Observation-Disclosures
be electrified and modernized It will
take time-it always does to change
farmers-and Irish farmers are very
conservative.
Heavily subsidized by the government
for both the production of sugar beets
and Of sugar, the Irish Sugar Manufac-
turing Co., composed of Belgian, Czech
oslovak and Irish interests, built o
sugar plant at Carlow in 1926 at q cost
of over $l,000000 This program has
been highly successful. Last year
141 ,140 tons of beets were grown and
20,500 tons of sugar was manufactured
as efficiently In any country of Europe.
Here is another modern institution STIR
ring "a bit of the old sod"
1t Is hard to picture the medieval
community into which these three great
highly efficient, modern plants dropped
(Contipued on Fourth Page.)