POLITICAL economists and newspaper editors for years have dwelt upon the unfortunate fact that Ireland is not a manufacturing nation, and does not export largely the products of her soil. But persons who have lived in the island, or who have visited the ports of its northern or southern shores, or crossed the Atlantic by any of the ocean steamers which sail daily from the United Kingdom, must have arrived at a conclusion totally at variance with these writers; for assuredly there is no nation under the sun which manufactures the material called man so readily as does that grass-covered island. Ireland is not a manufacturing nation, says the political economist. Indeed, my good sir, you are wholly mistaken. She is not only a manufacturing nation, but she manufactures nations. You do not see her broad-cloth, or her soft fabrics, or her steam-engines, but you see the broad shoulder of her sons and the soft cheeks of her daughters in vast states whose names you are utterly ignorant of; and as for the exportation of her products to foreign lands, just come with me on board this ocean steamship "Samaria", and look at them. The good ship has run down the channel during the night and now lies at anchor in Queenstown harbour, waiting for mails and passengers. The latter came, quickly and thickly enough. No poor, ill-fed, miserably dressed crowd, but fresh, and fair, and strong, and well clad, the bone and muscle and rustic beauty of the land; the little steam-tender that plies from the shore to the ship is crowded at every trip, and you can scan them as they come on board in batches of seventy or eighty. Some eyes among the girls are red with crying, but tears dry quickly on young cheeks, and they will be laughing before an hour is over. "Let them go," says the economist; "we have too many mouths to feed in these little islands of ours; their going will give us more room, more cattle, more chance to keep our acres for the few'; let them go." My friend, that is just half the picture, and no more; we may get a peep at the other half before you and I part. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon of the 4th of May when the "Samaria" steamed slowly between the capes of Camden and Carlisle, and rounding out into Atlantic turned her head towards the western horizon. The ocean lay unruffled along the rocky headlands of Ireland's southmost shore. A long line of smoke hanging suspended between sky and sea marked the unseen course of another steamship farther away to the south. A hill-top, blue and lonely, rose above the rugged coast-line, the far-off summit of some inland mountain; and as evening came down over the still tranquil ocean and the vessel clove her outward way through phosphorescent water, the lights along the iron coast grew fainter in distance till there lay around only the unbroken circle of the sea.