The encouragement of our native manufactures is now a general topic of
conversation and interest, and we hope the present excitement of the
public mind on this subject will be productive of permanent good. We also
hope that the encouragement proposed to be given to articles of Irish
manufacture will be extended to the productions of the head as well as to
those of the hands; that the manufacturer of Irish wit and humour will be
deemed worthy of support as well as those of silks, woollens, or felts;
and, that Irishmen shall venture to estimate the value of Irish produce
for themselves, without waiting as heretofore till they get “the London
stamp” upon them, as our play-going people of old times used to do in the
case of the eminent Irish actors.
We are indeed greatly inclined to believe that our Irish manufactures
are rising in estimation in England, from the fact which has come to
our knowledge that many thousands of our Belfast hams are sold annually
at the other side of the water as genuine Yorkshire, and also that many
of those Belfast hams with the Yorkshire stamp find their way back into
“Ould Ireland,” and are bought as English by those who would despise
them as Irish. Now, we should like our countrymen not to be gulled in
this way, but depend upon their own judgment in the matter of hams, and
in like manner in the matter of articles of Irish literary manufacture,
without waiting for the London stamp to be put on them. The necessity
for such discrimination and confidence in their own judgment exists
equally in hams and literature. Thus certain English editors approve so
highly of our articles in the Irish Penny Journal, that they copy them
by wholesale, not only without acknowledgment, but actually do us the
favour to father them as their own! As an example of this patronage, we
may refer to a recent number of the Court Gazette, in which its editor
has been entertaining his aristocratic readers with a little piece of
_badinage_ from our Journal, expressly written for us, and entitled “A
short chapter on Bustles,” but which he gives as written for the said
Court Gazette! Now, this is really very considerate and complimentary,
and we of course feel grateful. But, better again, we find our able and
kind friend the editor of the _Monitor_ and _Irishman_, presenting, no
doubt inadvertently, this very article to his Irish readers a few weeks
ago--not even as an Irish article that had got the London stamp upon it,
but as actually one of true British manufacture--the produce of the Court
Gazette.
Now, in perfect good humour, we ask our friend, as such we have reason to
consider him, could he not as well have copied this article from our own
Journal, and given us the credit of it--and would it not be worthy of the
consistency and patriotism of the _Irishman_, who writes so ably in the
cause of Irish manufactures, to extend his support, as far as might be
compatible with truth and honesty, to the native literature of Ireland?
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