"It is to the cheap labour that Ireland has supplied that we are indebted for 'our great works,' and cheap labour is now more than ever needed, because we have not only to underwork the Hindoo but also to underwork several of the principal nations of Europe and America. That we may have cheap labour we must have cheap food. Were we to permit you to become manufacturers you would make a market at home for your labour and wages would rise, and you would then be able to eat meat and wheaten bread, instead of potatoes, and the effect of this would be to raise the price of food; and thus should we be disabled from competing with the people of Germany, of Belgium, and of America, in the various markets of the world. Further than this, were you to become manufacturers you would consume a dozen pounds of cotton where now you consume but one, and this would raise the price of cotton, as the demand for Germany and Russia has now raised it, while your competition with us might lower the price of cloth. We need to have cheap cotton while selling dear cloth. We need to have cheap food while selling dear iron. Our paramount rule of action is, 'buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest one'--and the less civilized those with whom we have to deal the cheaper we can always buy and the dearer we can sell. It is, therefore, to our interest that your women should labour in the field, and that your children should grow up uneducated and barbarous. Even, however, were we so disposed, you could not compete with us. Your labour is cheap, it is true, but after having, for half a century, been deprived of manufactures, you have little skill, and it would require many years for you to acquire it. Your foreign trade has disappeared with your manufactures, and the products of your looms would have no market but your own. When we invent a pattern we have the whole world for a market, and after having supplied the domestic demand, we can furnish of it for foreign markets so cheaply as to set at defiance all competition. Further than all this, we have, at very short intervals, periods of monetary crisis that are so severe as to sweep away many of our own manufacturers, and at those times goods are forced into all the markets of the world, to be sold at any price that can be obtained for them. Look only at the facts of the last few years. Six years since, railroad iron was worth £12 per ton. Three years since, it could be had for £4.10, or even less. Now it is at £10, and a year hence it may be either £12 or £4; and whether it shall be the one or the other is dependent altogether upon the movements of the great Bank which regulates all our affairs. Under such circumstances, how could your infant establishments hope to exist? Be content. The Celt has long been 'the hewer of wood and drawer of water for the Saxon,' and so he must continue. We should regret to see you all driven from your native soil, because it would