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are in different case now. The friends and relatives in the East are thinned by the sickle of time, the debts are being paid off and the relation between the East and West is less one of dependency on the one hand, and of patronage on the other. They are independent empires, each with its own conditions and ambitions. That the West is reaching out for an alliance with the nearer South is because it sees in that action the improvement of its finances and a fairer prospect for the coming years. That such a view is wide-spread, and that it is attracting more attention every day is a striking feature of the present condition of the western development. That it means something more than idle speculation and that it will result in new business and trade relations is scarcely to be doubted. It probably means decreased revenues for the eastern traffic lines and the related industries, but unless the judgment of the West is at fault it means better times for the plains.

The East may as well realize that its child has come to the years of maturity and is acting for itself.

CHARLES MOREAU HARGER.

THE ALLEGED REPEOPLING OF IRELAND.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW:

DEAR SIR: Pray grant me the freedom of your pages to say a few words regarding some Notes and Comments over Mr. George Bassett's signature, in a recent number of the REVIEW. The subject is the "Repeopling of Ireland," and Mr. Bassett in the beginning remarks that to the stranger it looks as if the island which gave letters to England had been repeopled by Britons, while at the end he reflects that it would be a heart-breaking termination of the struggle if the Home Rule flag should float at last over a thoroughly Anglicized Ireland.

Mr. Bassett cites a number of Saxon and Norman names of Irish-born men distinguished in military, scientific, literary, clerical, and commercial circles, to show that what one may call the original Irishry are, so to speak, "not in it" in their several walks. The license which he takes in buttressing this theory will be gauged when one finds him using such names as Burke, Moore, Sheridan, Fitzgerald, as typical of "those English-speaking people of Ireland friendly to England." But let that pass, though it is worth while to note that the Normans became more Irish than the Irish themselves, and notoriously waste no friendship on England.

Mr. Bassett will be glad, I guess from the tone of his article, to learn that, according to a census recently taken in Ireland, purely Irish names stand far away in point of numbers at the head of the list. Murphys are over 60,000; O'Kellys are between 50,000 and 60,000; O'Sullivans are about the same number. My own name (purely Irish, with bearers of it concentrated to a large extent in one county, Wicklow, on the eastern seaboard, and contiguous to Dublin, the City of the Pale) musters 48,000, and is fifth on the list. I have not the official figures by me, but, as well as I remember, those I put down are, in the main, accurate. The name of Smith-not uncommon-is at the head; and it is well established that a great number of the native Irishry took the names of trades, such as that of Smith, Carpenter, Weaver, Joiner, and so forth, to disguise their race and conceal their religion during the penal days. As a matter of fact, the English settlers (nor the Scotch, apart from some sections of Ulster) have made no appreciably permanent effect on the agricultural population—and Ireland is an agricul

tural country. In effect, they become assimilated or extinct after a generation or two. The Jews, to whom Mr. Bassett alludes, never engage in agriculture, and go to Ireland merely as a migratory population, and because, perhaps, they were never persecuted there, and had champions in the Irish agitators and leaders, O'Connell, Butt, and Parnell, who were often their defenders in Parliament and out of it. It is true that in the higher learned circles and in the heavier commerce Saxon and Norman names preponderate in the cities; but throughout the country towns, large and small, the Irish names on the signboards as significantly predominate. Nay, even in Dublin, the greatest brewery in the world was founded by and is still mainly held by the Guinness family, who are MacGinnesses, and claim lineage with the chiefs of the old Northern sept or clan; and as for Cork, the Murphys are the founders and owners of the next biggest brewery in Ireland, while the Mahonys are makers and owners of the famous Blarney tweed factory. Gleesons and others of as truly Irish names are the proprietors of woollen mills in the very heart of the island.

If Mr. Bassett took up the national newspapers he could not have found such a disproportion of Irish to alien advertisers as he found in the conservative organ upon which he pitched. In point of fact it would be much easier for one to prove, on the lines taken by Mr. Bassett, and it would be much nearer the truth, that England has been Celticized by Scotchmen and Irishmen than that Ireland has been Anglicized by England, and certainly America has been more Hibernicized than Anglicized. As for the colonies of French Huguenots, afforded a refuge in such places as Portarlington, or German colonists dumped down here or there, the latter are nowhere and the former hardly count as affecting more than a small locality.

With reference to the Irish language, although it is not widely spoken, it is carefully preserved. There are professorships for Irish in all the considerable colleges in Ireland. It is taught in the Christian Brothers' and other schools, and is an officially recognized subject for marks in the intermediate education system. Besides, space is devoted to it on several newspapers, in some magazines, and it is fostered by conversazione societies in the capital. Mr. Bassett alludes to the fact that a greater number and variety of antique golden articles of a remote past are found in Ireland than in any other country, traces and proofs of its high ancient civilization. The treasure and muniment room of the Royal Irish Academy and Trinity College Library contain priceless articles of this character, and Irish manuscripts of a rare beauty beyond compare.

In concluding a letter which I did not mean to run to such length, and for which I claim your indulgence, I cannot agree with Mr. Bassett's theory that with a greater number of Irishmen out of Ireland than in Ireland the tendency must be ever to draw the flower of each generation to other lands. The Irishman, unlike his Cousin Scot, returns, or at least means to do so.

Yours faithfully,
EDWARD BYRNE.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

No. CCCCXCI.

OCTOBER, 1897.

MAN AND THE MACHINE.

BY THE RIGHT REV. HENRY C. POTTER, D.D., BISHOP OF NEW YORK.

IN May last there was held in the city of New York the annual meeting of an Association popularly known as C. A. I. L.* This Society is made up of the friends of working people of various callings and professions and of both sexes, and includes also representatives of various classes of working men and women. The meeting was wholly informal, and indeed explicitly social in its character; and after a simple but excellent supper there were informal speeches from various guests and others who were more or less representative of the interests represented by the Association.

It was my privilege to be one of these speakers, and it was not unnatural that one addressing such a gathering should be moved to call attention to the "interests" of those who labor, in a somewhat wider view of them than that word might ordinarily suggest. The interests of working men and women concern not alone their wages or housing, their hours or their food. And so I attempted to point out those just considerations which ought to influence not only the employers of labor, but all those who have it in their power, in any degree, to modify the conditions

• The Church Association for the Advancement of the Interests of Labor. 25

VOL. CLXV.-NO. 491.

Copyright, 1897, by THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW PUBLISHING COMPANY, All rights reserved.

under which people work to-day, growing out of the nature of those conditions as peculiar to our own generation. This line of remark led me to refer to what has aptly been called the "Industrial Revolution" of the last and the present century, and to the great changes it has brought about; to sketch briefly the condition of the handicraftsman of earlier timeshis domestic relations to his employer, the intimate and almost filial character of a workman's life as part of a great household, in which he ate below the salt, but often ate at the same table with his employer; and our modern conditions, under which he was often personally unknown to his employer, designated by a number, working in a "gang," and hired or dismissed usually without the smallest reference to any personal or domestic circumstances in the case. I recognized that a laborer, before the present century, was often hard driven, poorly fed, and worse housed; but pointed out that his individuality had more habitual recognition, and in many cases kindly and more or less fraternal consideration. Passing from this branch of the subject, I referred also to the enormous change in the circumstances of the working man growing out of the introduction of machinery, and pointed out how inevitable was the tendency of the increased employment of machinery to mechanicalize the workman. It was in view of such considerations, I urged, that such sympathetic interest in the circumstances, as well as the legal and economic rights of working men, appeared to have a just claim upon everybody who had regard to the "eternal equities," and felt any obligation for the well-being of his fellow-men.

Almost immediately after saying the few words which I have thus epitomized, I left the country for an absence of some months; but I had hardly touched the shores of a foreign land before I was followed by reports of my informal address, which for ingenious and grotesque inaccuracy have hardly had a parallel anywhere, I do not think I could state the case more stronglyin the columns of a sensational press.

I have not the slightest intention of undertaking to correct them here. My own rule in such cases has long been invariable. Some day the innocent people who allow themselves to be beguiled into correcting newspaper misstatements will learn that that weakness of misrepresented people is one of the reasons that

prompt the unscrupulous authors of those statements to make them. The personal element in modern newspapers is the mustard that gives to the whole vulgar dish, to many appetites, its chief relish. Sensible people will refuse to furnish it.

But I refer to the matter now in order to call attention to the immense mischief which is wrought by modern journalism, in such a connection as this, with regard to interests that are vastly more important than those of any individual. The deluge of excerpts, to which I have referred, included a multitudinous variety of criticisms of every kind upon statements which I had never made, and which any sane person, one would suppose, must know that it was impossible that I could have made-since they imputed to me opinions which could only be excusable in a lunatic. These criticisms proceeded from manufacturers, employers of labor, journalists, men of letters, clergymen, and other critics who could not easily be classified. No one of these persons had ever taken the trouble to verify the statements they criticised; and in the case of ministers of religion, especially, they furnished a curious and painful illustration of the way in which the demoralization of the pulpit has attended upon that of the press. The preacher, apparently, cared as little as the journalist for the facts in the case. What he wanted for his Sunday harangue was a sensational point of departure, and where he found it, or what was its value as something having any foundation in fact, was a matter of profound indifference to him.

Now, we talk of a sound public opinion as a foundation of the well-being of the state. But it is certainly a question of some importance,-how is such a public opinion created? Public opinion is not alone the opinion of scholars, statesmen, journalists, clergymen and the like. It is the opinion of that great mass of the people, whose diffused intelligence and accurate knowledge are in civic matters our only hope. But what is to be expected of it if it is fed habitually by misinformation, by exaggerated, sensational and irresponsible statements? Much is said in these days about the suppressed discontent and irritation which exists between classes,-not on one side alone, but on both sides. It is time that the question was asked: Who is responsible for it, and how may such a malign influence be restrained and chastened?

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