Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home RuleBuckley, Robert John
History
Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home Rule
Buckley, Robert John
Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901; Irish question
Home Rule for Ireland means damage and loss to English working men.
During the late general election the working men candidates of
Birmingham, and of England generally, argued that once Ireland were
granted Home Rule the distressful land would immediately become a
Garden of Eden, a sort of Hibernian El-Dorado; that the poverty which
drove Irishmen from their native shores would at once and for ever
cease and determine, and that thenceforth--and here was the
bribe--Irishmen would cease to compete with the overcrowded artisans
and labourers of England. That these statements are diametrically
opposed to the truth is well known to all persons of moderate
intelligence, and the personal statement of several great capitalists
with reference to their course of action in the event of Home Rule
becoming law tends to show that multitudes of the industrious classes
of Irish manufacturing towns will at once be thrown out of employment,
and must of necessity flock to England, increasing the congestion of
its great cities, competing with English labour, and inevitably
lowering the rate of wages. Hear what comfortable words Mr. Robert
Worthington can speak.
Mr. Worthington is no politician; never has interfered with party
questions; has always confined his attention to his business affairs.
It was because of this that Mr. Balfour sent for him to confer anent
the light railways, which have proved such a blessing to the country.
It was Mr. Worthington who carried out most of these beneficent works.
Besides this, Mr. Worthington has built railways to the amount of
three-quarters of a million in Ireland alone. He has employed 5,300
men at one time, and his regular average exceeds 1,500 all the year
round. He may therefore be said to know what he is talking about. I
called on him at 30, Dame Street, before I left Dublin, and he said,
"The bill would be bad for England in every way, and would ruin
Ireland. The question is certainly one for the English working man. If
he wishes to avoid the competition of armies of Irish labourers and
artisans he must throw out the bill. And this is how it will work--
"All the railways I have constructed in Ireland have been built on
county guarantees assisted by special grants from the Imperial
Treasury. Without these special grants the work could never have been
undertaken at all. If Home Rule becomes law those special grants from
the Imperial Treasury will be no longer available; and what will be
the result? Clearly that the work will not be undertaken; that the
building of railways will come to an end, and that the Irish peasants
who have devoted themselves to railway work will go to England and try
to find employment there. Once a railway navvy, always a railway
navvy, is a well-known and very true saying.
"For my own part I shall be compelled to compete in England, having
nothing to do in Ireland, and I shall of course transport my staff and
labourers across the Channel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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