The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1883-06-02 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

THE IRISH HARVEST LABOURERS. acting towards M.dagascar. Were she 1 The Chairman road a communication from to again try conclusions with Germany i the Local Govereineut Board, through Mr. for the purpose of gaining the lost pro- . Dunsie, inspector, asking if the Guardians had sger a e vinces of Alsace and Lorraine, there observed r y a, r any decrease ecir7as,i. it,,iere threntildnb!nrg n of Irish m t might be some sympathy with her; but years. If so, did the Onardians attribute it to when she seeks to propitiate the more the lessened demand tor their services or to disorderly portion of her subjects by ' a falling oil in the sully, and did they think pillaging and murdering seeminglythe falling off was lik.•ly to be temporary or de- ' permanent? fenceless and inoffensive people, whose 1 In reference to the fi et question, two or only desire is to in left to themselves three members spoke of a very considerable and their own ennui ,y , she is guilty of, falling off. an act of infamy wich it would be eod tcoog:t,litmo etlihteeedndtfef ~ difficult to find WO. - to properly char- 1 thelire.njoutireigeswhaondwanni 1 chairman on his great patience', suggested as acterise. 1 an muster to the last query that there was an ~)  "increasing falling off." (Laughter.) He then withdrew to preside at the meeting of the Rural Sanitary Authority in another room. Mr. King ascribed the decrease principally to the falling off in the supply. He found that in his district—the Hundred of Wirral—the Irishmen that used to come early in the season went to the great seed potato season in the west of Scotland—to Renfrewshire and Ayrshire. Some of them also found employment at the collieries and railways. The Chairman held that the light crops of the last few years, and the improved machinery for securing them, had lessened the demand. He liad known some poor fellows to come from Ireland in recent years and not manage to earn their passage money home. Besides the seasons had of late years been so wet and inclement that the men had started for home before the work was done. If our home lab ,urers were as industrious as the Irish, we would be very much independent of the Irish, but when, for instance, lie went to Nestou for men and saw eight or ten sitting on doorsteps, he would ask them to come and work for him, they would reply " Yes, if you give us 3s. 61. a day." They had also come into his yard, and if he did not promise them 3. 6d. they would go home again. It was not that they had not got labourers, but that they had got so lazy and so unwilling to obey that you got little good out of them. A little creature of 14 came to his house lately, and because he would not give him 2s. fid. a day the lad went away. He was afraid to hire an English labourer to work amongst Irish labourers, because he would spoil them with his notions of short time and eating and drinking, and spending so much time over it. He would rather have a good, honest Irish labourer. Treat him well and you would get much more work out of him than out of the English labourer. As to the last points in the enquiries of the Local Government Board it was remarked by the Chairman and other members that young Irish labourers who came over to field work settled down in towns when they found opportunity, and may of the Irish who used to come over here had probably gone to America. THE GUARDIANS AND TIM SiNITARY