THE ECONOMIC CONDITION OF IRELAND
"When the inhabitants of a country leave it in crowds because
the government does not leave them room in which to live, that
government is judged and condemned."--JOHN STUART MILL,
_Political Economy_.
I have shown something of the incubus of taxation which overpowers
Ireland from the fact that she--the poorest country in Western
Europe--is bound to the richest in such a manner that the latter has not
the common prudence to recognise the flagitious injustice which she is
inflicting, while, by a refinement of cruelty, she repeats her
assurances that Ireland is a spoilt child, and for this reason alone
does not appreciate the blessings of British rule. In the light of the
facts before us one may well ask whether it was an extreme hyperbole of
which Grattan made use when he declared that "Ireland, like every
enslaved country, will be compelled to pay for her own subjugation."
When we are urged to put into practice the counsels of perfection and
study the virtue of patience while we wait for the opportune moment for
reform, from the point of view of English party politics, our reply is
that things have reached so desperate a pass that to submit to the
delays entailed by the exigencies of political strategy is a suicidal
policy which we cannot afford to endure without protest.
The inhabitants of Great Britain had their Imperial taxation cut down in
the nineteenth century by one-half, that of the Irish people was
doubled. Every year that passes without radical change in the relations
between the two countries makes it more serious, and makes the changes
more drastic which will be required when the need for them is at last
fully realised.
At the present day more than ten millions per annum are raised by
taxation in Ireland. Of these seven and a half are spent on the _home_
government of the country, which in 1890 cost only just over five
millions, while that of Scotland at this moment costs a little
more--namely, five and a half millions.
If one looks at the case of Denmark one finds a rich agricultural
country with a population of six and a half millions, which is able to
maintain her home and foreign government, a Royal Family, a debt, an
army with a war strength of 70,000, a fleet, and the expense of three
colonies, on an expenditure of four and a half millions.
Sweden, to take another case, with a population of six and a half
millions, a large commerce, and many industries, is able to support her
whole government, army, navy, diplomatic and consular service on a
budget of little more than five millions; and the cost of civil
government of Belgium, with a greater population and four times the
trade, is one-half that of Ireland. The relative cost of _home_
government per head of population, which amounts in Ireland to £1 14s.
3d., in England and Wales to £1 3s., and in Scotland to £1 3s. 3d.,
illustrates in a striking manner the ruinous condition of the present
incidence in Ireland.
If this administrative waste is palliated by the statement that it
retains money in Ireland, the reply is that the excess of administrative
expenditure which is included in this sum is enough to effect large
measures of social reform in the country, the benefit of which is not to
be named in the same breath with the present mode of maintaining an
extravagant staff of highly-paid officials. As things are, however, all
motives to secure economies in the Irish services are vitiated by the
existing system by which any economies in Irish administration go, not
to Ireland, but to the Imperial Treasury, and in this way economical
government is not merely not encouraged but actually discouraged, and
hence it is that one has such contrasts as that to be seen in each
year's Civil Service Estimates, where, under the item of stationery and
postage in respect of public departments, the amount for the last year
which I have seen is, for Scotland £24,000, and for Ireland,£43,000, and
that the Department of Agriculture, out of a total income from
Parliamentary Grant of £190,000, spends no less than £80,000 on salaries
and wages, and another £10,000 on travelling expenses.
Sir Robert Giffen has calculated that the incomes of the wage-earning
classes in Ireland are, man for man, one-half those of the members of
the same classes in England. Statistics of every kind bear out the
striking difference in the conditions of the two countries. The average
poor law valuation in Ireland is about equal to that of the poorest East
London Unions, where it is £3. Though the population is between
one-seventh and one-eighth of that of England, the number of railway
passengers is one-thirty-seventh, the tons of railway freight is
one-seventeenth, the telegrams are one-eighteenth, the postal and money
orders are one-nineteenth of those of England.
Ireland, to take another test of prosperity, is the fourth
meat-producing country in the world and the sixteenth meat-eating, while
England, by a curious coincidence, is the sixteenth meat-producing, but
the fourth meat-eating, country in the world. The one direction in which
the extension of the powers and duties of the Executive has often been
urged has not been pursued. I mean the matter of railways. Though in
1834 a Royal Commission recommended that Irish railways should be built
with money from the British Treasury, and should be subject to State
control, nothing was done in the matter. Lord Salisbury and Lord
Randolph Churchill were in 1886 in favour of the nationalisation of
Irish railways, but at that date again no steps were taken. Mr. Balfour,
it is true, when Chief Secretary, secured the passing of the Light
Railways Act, under which powers were obtained to open up the Congested
Districts by means of light railways, such as those which have been
built to Clifden, in County Galway, and to Burtonport, in County
Donegal. But the policy which was followed in this Act was to build the
railway out of a Treasury grant, and after it had been built to hand it
over to one of the existing railway companies.
There are to-day 3,000 odd miles of railway in Ireland--a mileage
scarcely exceeding that of a single company, the Great Western Railway,
in England. They are owned by nearly thirty companies, each with a
separate staff of directors and salaried officials, the directors alone
being over 130 in number. The railways of the country are, without
exception, notoriously bad, the delay and dislocation incident to the
transfer of goods from one line to another, and the high rates which
prevail, inevitably serve to impede any traffic in goods, especially if
they are of a perishable character.
It is not traffic that makes communications, but cheap communications
that make traffic. The Belgian Government, fifty years ago, took over
the railways of that country, and reduced the freights to such a degree
that in eight years the quantity of goods carried was doubled, the
receipts of the railways were increased fifty per cent., and the profits
of the producers were multiplied five-fold. I am not quoting this
instance by way of plea that the present remedy for the grave economic
problems of Ireland lies in nationalisation of railways. I have said
enough to show the extravagance and irresponsibility of the present
Executive system, and in view of that no sane man would propose to endow
it with further powers than those which it already possesses; but let
me say this, that if the present state of diffusive impotence which
rules in the matter of transit in the country continues, some very
drastic remedies may before long have to be devised.
The cheapest freights for grain in the world are those between Chicago
and New York, and the reason why this is so is that there exists keen
competition on the part of the inland waterways. Of the 580 miles of
canals in Ireland a considerable part are owned by the railway
companies, and their weed-choked condition shows the use to which they
are put in the national economy.
Whoever it was that said the carriers of freight hold the keys of trade
was stating what appears almost an axiom, and an illustration is
afforded of the results of reduced rates in an analogous business in the
way in which the establishment of penny postage sent up the receipts of
the General Post Office.
The difference in the freights in the three kingdoms may be seen by a
comparison of the average rate per ton of merchandise in the year 1900--
In England In Scotland In Ireland
4s. 10.26d. 4s. 11.64d. 6s. 7.90d.
In the decade from 1890-1900 the figure in England and Wales decreased
8.79d., in Scotland 1.7d., and in Ireland increased by 1.92d.
Again, the control of the great English railway corporations over the
small companies in Ireland has led to a state of things by which
freights for imported goods are relatively lower than are those for
purely internal carriage, and by this means the railways of Great
Britain maintain their grip of the carrying trade, and incidentally
destroy the industry of Ireland.
The trade of Ireland is not two per cent. of that of the three kingdoms,
and this policy of swamping the Irish market with English-made goods at
low rates to such an extent that over twelve million pounds' worth of
imported goods are sold annually in Ireland shows the manner in which
the principles of free trade are applied to that country; and so it has
come to pass that the opening up of the country by railways has often
tended to destroy local industries and to substitute for their products
articles manufactured in England and Continental Europe at a cheaper
cost, carried in either case by English railways, which, in consequence,
reap the benefit of the freight. The carriage per ton paid by eggs to
London, to take one example, is 16s. 8d. from Normandy, 24s. from
Denmark, and no less that 94s. from Galway.
The bearing of the transit question on the agricultural problem is seen
by a consideration of the rates for every form of farm produce, which in
Ireland are fifteen to twenty per cent. of their value. On the Continent
the average is five to six per cent., and in the United States and
Canada it is three per cent. The discouragement of such a tariff to
agricultural enterprise has had a great bearing on the transformation of
plough land into cattle ranches, and the extent to which this has
occurred may be seen from the fact that there are to-day twelve million
acres of pasture to three millions of arable land in the island, and
fertile land, like that of the plains of Meath, is to be seen growing,
not corn for men, but grass for cattle. The success of the country in
stock-raising may very easily be rendered nugatory if the exclusion of
Argentine and Canadian cattle from the English market be ended by the
passing of an Act giving the Board of Agriculture a discretionary power
to maintain or remove the embargo on their importation, according as the
danger of an introduction of cattle disease exists or disappears. The
enormous import trade which is done in Danish butter, Italian cheese,
and even Siberian eggs, shows the commercial possibilities of farm
produce when freights are low. As a tangible example of the
discrimination which the railways pursue may be mentioned the fact that
the freight for goods per ton from Liverpool to Cavan is 10s. 8d., while
that from Cavan to Liverpool is 16s. 8d. The numbers employed on
agriculture have diminished, not only in proportion to the population
but also relatively to its decrease. According to Mr. Charles Booth land
employs as many people to-day in England as it did in 1841, and it
probably supports nearly as many, and though in that country, building
and manufacture employ a vast number more, in Ireland there has been in
the same time a decrease of nearly eleven per cent. of those so
employed--the total decrease being 626,000.
The population of England has in the last century been multiplied by
four, that of Scotland has increased threefold, while that of Ireland
has decreased by one-fourth. If we take the last sixty years it will be
seen that the people of England have doubled their numbers, but those of
Ireland have divided by two. It would be idle to pretend that the great
exodus which took place after the famine was in all respects to be
regretted. The abnormal increase in population which took place in the
first forty years of the nineteenth century was in itself out of all
proportion to the increase of productive capacity in the country, and
was closely related to the unnatural inflation of prices, and consequent
spurious appearance of prosperity, due to the great war. When the climax
came this was rapidly followed by a reaction, and when emigration
reduced the numbers of eight million people who were in the island in
1841, the modified competition in the labour market and in the land
market tended to restore prices to a normal figure.
Emigration was at one time a well-recognised remedy with English
statesmen for Irish ills. Did not Michael Davitt once say that manacles
and Manitoba were the two cures for Ireland which they could propose?
Even then, no attempt was made to regulate emigration by the State. The
ball which was thus set rolling at that date has been in motion ever
since, and that which half a century ago was regarded as the hand of the
_deus ex machina_ setting right a grave economic problem has continued,
so that it has become at this day a problem no less grave, which to an
equal degree presses for solution.
Four million people in the last sixty-five years fled from the country,
and though the figures, as they are published, seem to show a slight
decrease each year, the apparent diminution is to a large extent
fallacious, since the residue of population from which emigrants are
drawn becomes each year less, and an apparent decrease may in truth be a
relative increase.
We heard much a few years ago in England of the evils of immigration
into the British Isles of aliens, whom the Board of Trade returns show
amount to eight thousand per annum--a figure which appears paltry when
compared with the forty thousand people who leave Ireland every year. It
is a cry which one is told should make the thirty-seven million
inhabitants of England and Scotland burn with indignation that this
number of foreigners land on their shores every year. Surely we Irishmen
have a far greater cause of complaint in the fact that out of a
population of four and a half millions, less than is that of London, a
number greater than those of a town of the size of Limerick emigrate
every year. Most of these emigrants are in the prime of life. Their
average age is from twenty to twenty-five, and more than ninety per
cent. are between the ages of ten and forty-five years. Here is the
crucial fact, that it is the young, the active, and the plucky who are
being tempted by promises of success abroad, to which they see no
likelihood of attaining at home, and in this way is established a system
of the survival of the unfittest, an artificial selection of the most
malignant kind, which is leaving the old, the infirm, the poor, and the
unadventurous behind to swell the figures of pauperism and to propagate
the race. All the authorities are agreed in attributing to this cause
the lamentable increase of lunacy, which is one of the most terrible
factors in the economy of modern Ireland. The last Census report shows
the total number of lunatics and idiots to have been in 1851 equal to a
ratio of 1 in 637 of the population, and to be in 1901 equal to a ratio
of 1 in 178. The proportion is, as one would expect, highest in the
purely agricultural districts and lowest in the neighbourhood of cities,
such as Dublin and Belfast, where industrial conditions imply better
wages and food, and a less monotonous existence.
It should be remembered that the proportion of imbeciles in Great
Britain has risen in the period of fifty years as it has in
Ireland--partly, no doubt, owing to a better system of registration of
lunacy--but, at the same time, the fact remains that the average in
Ireland is very much greater than in England and Wales, rising in some
Irish counties to a proportion twice, and in another to a ratio thrice,
as high as that of the average of the whole of England and Wales.
If urban industrial conditions militate against an increase of lunacy,
on the other hand it must be remembered that in most Irish towns there
is an appalling amount of overcrowding. The death-rate of Dublin--the
highest of any city in Europe--is, in consequence, no less than 25 per
1,000, as against 16 per 1,000 in Paris and New York, and 17 per 1,000
in London. The percentage of families, consisting on an average of four
persons, living in one room is in London 14.6, in Edinburgh 16.9, in
Glasgow 26.1, in Cork 10.6, in Limerick, 15.8, while in Dublin it
reaches the appalling percentage of 36. In Belfast, which, unlike any
other of the cities which I have mentioned, is for the most part modern,
the percentage is not higher than 1, and this fact has a very great
bearing on the industrial conditions in that city. Side by side with
these figures may be placed those of the death-rate from tuberculosis,
which from 1864 to 1906 in England decreased from 3.3 per 1,000 to 1.6,
in Scotland decreased from 3.6 per 1,000 to 2.1, and in Ireland
_increased_ from 2.4 to 2.7 per 1,000.
The rate war of the steamship companies, which reduced the cost of
passage across the Atlantic in 1904, caused the emigration returns to
rise from 45,000 to 58,000 in a single year, and at the same time there
were employed in Ireland two hundred emigration agents of one company
alone--the Cunard--each of whom received six shillings a head for each
banished Irishman and Irishwoman whom he got safely out of the country.
It is easy for the Irishman to wax eloquent about the exiles who, from
the time when O'Neil and O'Donnell weighed anchor in Lough Swilly at the
very beginning of the seventeenth century, sailed from their country to
seek their fortunes abroad in Church or State or camp, since
proscription deprived them of the _carrière ouverte aux talents_ at
home. The history of the "wild geese" in the service of France, Spain,
Italy, Austria, Prussia, and of Russia; of the Irishmen who were
respectively the first Quartermaster-General of the United States Army
and the first Commodore of the United States Navy, or of the seven Irish
Field Marshals of Austria, or of those who served as Viceroys to Chili,
Peru, and Mexico, is the story of the citizens of no mean city. Catholic
Europe is flecked with the white graves of the Irish exiles of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; from Rome to Valladolid, from
Douai to Prague, from Salamanca to Louvain, and from Tournai to Paris
you will find their bones. But the pathos of this is, to my mind, as
nothing compared with the pathos of what is occurring now. For one
thing, it was only men in those days that went in any large numbers,
while to-day it is both men and women. From the point of view of England
the result has been in no small degree serious. Of the four million
people who have emigrated since the great tidal wave began with the
famine, nearly ninety per cent. have gone, not to British Colonies, but
to the United States. Of the fifty thousand who emigrated in 1905 more
than forty-four thousand went to the North-American Republic.
_Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt_; the Ulster
Protestants who were driven from their country by the commercial
restrictions of the eighteenth century formed the nucleus of the most
implacable enemies of Great Britain in the War of Independence--half
Washington's army was recruited from Irishmen in America; and in the
same way the exiles of the nineteenth century became, and have remained
even to the second generation, irreconcilable adversaries of the system
of government which, by affording for too long no relief to the
conditions in Ireland, was responsible for the flight from their home to
a land which was, by comparison, flowing with milk and honey.
Side by side with emigration goes on another factor in the social life
of the country which is very significant of the stress under which, in
some districts, the Irish peasant ekes out an existence. I am referring
to the migratory labourers, of whom nearly 18,000 leave their homes in
Ireland every year to work in the harvest fields of England and
Scotland, that they may there secure a wage by which they are able to
make both ends meet in a manner which the uneconomic nature of their
holdings does not permit. How small is the diminution in this annual
migration is seen by the fact that the highest figures in connection
with it recorded in the last quarter of a century are those of 1880, in
which year nearly 23,000 migrated, while within the last six years--in
1901--the figures were as high as 19,700. More than three-quarters of
these labourers come from Connacht, and of the total number more than
one-half from County Mayo, from which every year 47.8 per thousand of
the population migrate, and if one takes the adult male
population--_i.e._, that of men over twenty years of age--one finds that
the number of migratory labourers represents a proportion of 177.4 per
thousand. Nearly three-quarters of them go to England, and the harvest
fields of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire are in a large measure reaped by
their hands. From February till June the migration occurs, and the
labourers return in the late autumn to their homes. The fact that the
sum brought back by them is, at the highest estimate, said to be about
£18 after nine months of labour, and that the wages which they earn
amount to an average of 17s. a week, while, in addition to the cost of
living for three-quarters of the year, about £2 is spent on their
railway fare, all serve to show the nature of the economic conditions in
the West of Ireland which make such a migration for such a wage worth
while on the part of nearly twenty thousand people. One factor in this
connection which should be noted is that the number of girls who migrate
every year is said to be increasing, and is estimated to amount to
nearly half the total throughout the country. The precariousness of a
dependence on such a means of subsistence as this, is seen from the fact
that a bad harvest in England or a development in agricultural machinery
would put an end to the source of livelihood which it provides. If from
no other point of view the problem should be regarded seriously by
Englishmen in the light of the depopulation of the English countryside,
with its direct bearing upon the material for recruiting the army and
navy, and the problem of unemployment in general.
It is a surprising thing that the support of home industries, which was
one of the foibles of Dean Swift, who advised Irishmen to burn
everything that came from England except its coal, has only of very
recent years been resuscitated. So much is this the case that the action
of the South Dublin Board of Guardians, who in 1881 insisted that the
workhouse inmates should be clothed in Irish produce, was conspicuous by
its exceptional nature. At this day all are agreed, whatever be their
religious or political opinions, on the advocacy of this form of
exclusive dealing at which economists may scowl as at a deliberate
attempt to fly in the face of the regular play of the forces of supply
and demand, but the success which has so far attended the concerted
policy of insisting upon being supplied with Irish produce, and the fact
that it is, after all, the only mode of restoring to their natural
functions the economic forces in a country where industrial conditions
were, by artificial means, thrown out of their natural course, is the
justification for its employment.
If for no other reason, the activity displayed by "religious" in Ireland
in the encouragement and development of local industries as a check on
emigration should protect them from the attacks which have been made
upon them, as tending to encourage the uneconomic aspect of the
situation in Ireland. To name only a few that come into one's mind, the
nuns' co-operative factories, which have revived Irish point lace at
Youghal, Kenmare, Gort, Carrick-on-Suir, Carrickmacross, and Galway, are
instances. Father Dooley, in Galway, has started a woollen factory, with
a capital of £10,000, in which nearly two hundred girls are employed, of
whom many earn £1 10s. a week. Father Quin, at Ballina, has founded a
co-operative shoe factory, and at Castlebar Father Lyons has established
an electric power station. The work of the Sisters of Charity at Foxford
is well known, and stands in need of no praise, and at Kiltimagh, in
Mayo, they employ a hundred and twenty girls at dress and lace making;
while Father Maguire, at Dromore, in Tyrone, has established a lace and
crochet factory on co-operative principles, which has over a hundred
employees; and at Lough Glynn, in Connacht, a carpet and cheese making
industry has been built up solely through the efforts of a religious
order of nuns. These are random examples, and I do not claim that they
are typical. They are, on the other hand, not exceptional.
It is impossible to exaggerate the effect of the English commercial
policy towards Ireland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Wool, cotton, sailcloth, sugar refining, shipping, glass, the cattle and
provision trade, were all deliberately strangled. And besides the loss
of wealth to Ireland which was the consequence, one must take into
account the fact that traditions of commercial enterprise perished
through desuetude, so that in the industrial revolution at the beginning
of the nineteenth century Ireland was too severely crippled to derive
any benefit from the new order, as to which she was still further
handicapped by the poverty of her coal fields.
The land system, which is only now disappearing, served, moreover, not
to inculcate habits of thrift, but positively as a discouragement of
economic virtues. Until the legal recognition of tenant-right had been
secured, the tenant who made improvements was liable to have his rent
raised, and was aware that he had no legal right to compensation for
them on his removal from the holding. Further, the judicial fixing of
rents, which, as the time for rent revision has approached, has
presented to the tenant the temptation not to make the best of his land,
and so run the risk of an augmentation of rent, has been a source of
insidious demoralisation to the occupant of the soil.
The social upheaval resulting from land purchase will nowhere be more
marked than in this respect in the stability which it will produce in
the financial conditions of the country, and it may be expected to do
something to remedy the lamentable state of things which so far has but
little altered from that of twenty years ago, when it was estimated that
five-sixths of the total capital of the country was invested abroad. A
great opportunity presents itself at the present moment. It was stated a
few years ago that eleven millions of rent were spent out of the island.
At this day when, under the Land Purchase Act, an immense amount of
property is being realised, the patriotic Irish landlord seeking an
investment for his money can, by starting industries in Ireland, at one
and the same time do a patriotic work by providing against the stream of
emigration, and can secure a safe and profitable investment for his
purchase-money. There are very nearly eighty million pounds of capital
to be set free under the Act, and it is scarcely too much to expect that
a large proportion of it will be invested by the expropriated landlords
in their own country. The possibility of an industrial revival in
Ireland is well illustrated by the increase in the number of
co-operative societies, in which there are at the present day 100,000
members, while less than twenty years ago there were only fifty.
The effect of the Dairy, Agricultural, and Poultry Societies is very
important, but perhaps of still greater importance are the Raffeisin
banks, which aim at the promotion of farming by means of co-operative
credit. The loans which they make, at an interest of five per cent. or
six per cent., are dealing a death-blow at that curse of Irish life--the
gombeen man, whose usury used to mount up to thirty per cent. The
extremely rare cases of default in the repayment of these loans for
agricultural purposes will not be surprising to those who recall the
tribute paid by Mr. Wyndham, in connection with land purchase annuities,
to the Irish peasant as a debtor whose reliability is unimpeachable.
More than twenty years ago the Baroness Burdett Coutts made a loan of
£10,000 to the fishermen of Baltimore, with a view to the development of
their industry, and the unfailing punctuality with which payments were
made afforded another instance of the reliability which is a
characteristic of the Irish peasant. This brings one to note in passing
that of all others the fishing industry has probably suffered most from
the lack of proper means of transit. The 2,500 miles of coast line offer
great scope, but the catch of fish off the Irish coast is only
one-eighth of that off Scotland, and one-sixteenth of that off England
and Wales, and Irish waters are to a very large extent fished by boats
from the coasts of Scotland, the Isle of Man, France, and Norway. Oyster
fisheries used to abound--the celebrated beds at Arcachon in the Landes
were stocked from Ireland--but they have fallen into disuse, and with
their disappearance a very remunerative business has been lost. The need
for extensive and scientific forestry one may also note is obvious, from
the fact that there are seven million acres of former woodland which are
now reduced to a waste. The results of planting a shelter bed of pines
on the north and west coasts, as a protection from the Atlantic winds,
would be very great, while the industrial effect of systematised
forestry would be immense. Bark for tanning, charcoal, moss, resin,
manure from fallen leaves, litter, fuel, and mushrooms are some of the
bye-products of this reproductive industry, while by planting willows,
which yield a rapid return, along bogs a basket weaving industry might
very rapidly be developed. The need, however, for planting on an
extensive scale and the inevitable delay before any returns for
expenditure accrue, make forestry essentially an object not for private
but for public enterprise.
It is not generally known that in 1831 Ireland grew one-fifth of the
tobacco consumed in the three kingdoms, but that in that year the first
Liberal Government which was in power for a generation put down a
profitable industry for which the turfy soil of the country was
particularly well adapted. With the help of a shilling rebate it is
being shown, on an experimental area, that tobacco can be grown
successfully in Ireland. At present the Treasury has refused to allow
any extension of the area under cultivation, and it remains to be seen
whether the united demands of Irish members--Unionist as well as
Nationalist--will secure the removal of the prohibition against its
growth, and so possibly lead to a re-establishment of its cultivation on
a similar scale to that of three-quarters of a century ago.
Perhaps the most important and, one may surmise, far-reaching step
which has been taken in respect of Irish industries in the last few
years is to be found in the registration, under the Merchandise Marks
Act of 1905, of a national trade-mark, the property in which is vested
in an association, which, on payment of a fee, grants the right to use
it to manufacturers of the nature of whose credentials it is satisfied.
The value of this is obvious as giving a guarantee of the country of
origin of goods at a time when the increased demand for Irish produce
has added to the number of unscrupulous traders who sell as "made in
Ireland" goods which are not of Irish manufacture. It is said that
twenty years ago most of the tweed which was placed upon the market
which had been made in Ireland was sold as Cheviot, and that to-day the
_rôles_ are reversed, and it is certain that for many years the great
bulk of Irish butter masqueraded in English provision shops as Danish.
The income of the association is devoted to the taking of legal action
against traders who fraudulently sell as Irish, foreign including
English made goods. If an instance is needed of the results which the
protection of a national trade-mark gives in the encouragement of
industry, by the guarantee of origin which it entails, it is to be found
in the success of similar action in the cases of the butter industries
of Sweden and Austria. It is a great tribute to the Trade-Mark
Association that within two years of its incorporation the Congested
Districts Board has applied for the use of the trade-mark for the
products of its lace classes and for its homespuns.
The task proposed by Henry Grattan to the Irish Parliament may well be
taken to heart by the Irish people to-day:--"In the arts that polish
life, the manufactures that adorn it, you will for many years be
inferior to some other parts of Europe, but to nurse a growing people,
to mature a struggling, though hardy, community, to mould, to multiply,
to consolidate, to inspire, and to exalt a young nation, be these your
barbarous accomplishments."