Another thing is clear. A country may be levelled down by idleness and ignorance; it can only be levelled up by industry and intelligence. It is easy to pull down; it is very difficult to build up. The hands that cannot erect a hovel may demolish a palace. We have but to look to Switzerland to see what a country may become which mixes its industry with its brains. That little land has no coal, no seaboard by which she can introduce it, and is shut off from other countries by lofty mountains, as well as by hostile tariffs; and yet Switzerland is one of the most prosperous nations in Europe, because governed and regulated by intelligent industry. Let Ireland look to Switzerland, and she need not despair. Ireland is a much richer country by nature than is generally supposed. In fact, she has not yet been properly explored. There is copper-ore in Wicklow, Waterford, and Cork. The Leitrim iron-ores are famous for their riches; and there is good ironstone in Kilkenny, as well as in Ulster. The Connaught ores are mixed with coal-beds. Kaolin, porcelain clay, and coarser clay, abound; but it is only at Belleek that it has been employed in the pottery manufacture. But the sea about Ireland is still less explored than the land. All round the Atlantic seaboard of the Irish coast are shoals of herring and mackerel, which might be food for men, but are at present only consumed by the multitudes of sea-birds which follow them. In the daily papers giving an account of the Cork Exhibition, appeared the following paragraph: "An interesting exhibit will be a quantity of preserved herrings from Lowestoft, caught off the old head of Kinsale, and returned to Cork after undergoing a preserving process in England."[6] Fish caught off the coast of Ireland by English fishermen, taken to England and cured, and then "returned to Cork" for exhibition! Here is an opening for patriotic Irishmen. Why not catch and preserve the fish at home, and get the entire benefit of the fish traffic? Will it be believed that there is probably more money value in the seas round Ireland than there is in the land itself? This is actually the case with the sea round the county of Aberdeen.[7] A vast source of wealth lies at the very doors of the Irish people. But the harvest of an ocean teeming with life is allowed to pass into other hands. The majority of the boats which take part in the fishery at Kinsale are from the little island of Man, from Cornwall, from France, and from Scotland. The fishermen catch the fish, salt them, and carry them or send them away. While the Irish boats are diminishing in number, those of the strangers are increasing. In an East Lothian paper, published in May 1881, I find the following paragraph, under the head of Cockenzie:-.