Men of Invention and Industry

st to boast of, and a futur

nufactures. We ought to be an exporting nation, or we never will

assions, prejudices, and resentments on the altar of our country. Then s

aily by post assuring his friends of his safety. We went together accordingly to Galway, up Lough Corrib to Cong and Lough Mask; by the romantic lakes and mountains of Connemara to Clifden and Letterfrack, an

ccompanied by his daughter. The Bianconi long car between Clifden and Westport had been taken off for want of support. The only persons who seemed to have no fear of Irish agrarianism were the English anglers, who are ready to brave all dangers, imaginary or supposed, provided they can only kill a big salmon! And all the rivers flowin

from a bombardment. Where a roof has fallen in, nothing has been done to repair it. It was of no use. The ruin has been left to go on. The mills, which used to grind home-grown corn, are now unemployed. The corn comes ready ground from America. Nothing is thought of but emigration, and the best people are going, leaving the old, the weak,

oped, through the length and breadth of the kingdom? "I confess," he said, "I should like to give Ireland a fair opportunity of working her home manufactures. We can each one of us do much to revive the ancient name of our nation in those industrial pursuits which have done so much to increase and render glorious those greater nations by the side of which we live. I t

ck. Why should not these things exist again? "We have a people who are by nature quick and facile to learn, who have shown in many other countries that they are industrious and laborious, and who have not been e

d they will be bought, not only by the Irish, but by the English and people of all nations. Manufactures cannot be "boycotted." They will find their way into all lands, in spite even of the most restrictive tariffs. Take, for instance, the case of Belfast hereafter to b

sed.[2] Since 1868, not less than 400,000 acres have been disused for this purpose.[3] Wheat can be bought better and cheaper in America, and imported into Ireland ground into flour. The consequence is, that the men who worked

rone, in the order named. Besides this amount, the sum of 2,082,413L. was due to depositors in the ordinary Savings Banks on the 20th of November, 1882; or, in all, more than four millions sterling, the deposits of small capitalists. At Cork, at the end of last year, it was found that the total deposits made in the savings bank had been 76,000L, or an increase of 6,675L. over the preceding twelve months. But this is not all. The Irish middle classes are accustomed to deposit most of their savings in the Joint Stock banks; and from the returns presented to the Lord Li

her people have contributed not less than six millions sterling for the purpose of building places of worship, convents, schoo

an Irish banker, that there is abundance of money to be got in Ireland for any industry which has a reasonable chance of success. One thing, however, is certain: there must be perfect safety. An old writer has said that "Government is a badge of lost innocence: the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of

by combinations, it suddenly disappears. "The age of glory of a nation," said Sir Humphry Davy, "is the age of its security. The same dignified feeling which urges men to gain a dominion over natur

es.[5] Dr. Doyle stated before the Irish Committee of 1830, that the almost total extinction of the Kilkenny blanket-trade was attributable to the combinations of the weavers; and O'Connell admitted that Trades Unions had wrought more evil to Ireland than absenteeism and Sax

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 countri

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 Ir

ng 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 fis

t 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

r the herring-fishery at Kinsale, in Ireland. The success attending their labours last year

500L. With these boats they carry on their pursuits on the coast of Scotland, England, and Ireland. In 1882, they sent about thirty boats to Kinsale[8] and Howth. The profits of their fishing has been such as to enable them, with the assistance of Lord Wem

n paid 1000L. annually in consideration of his subjects being allowed to fish on the north-west coast of Ireland; and it appears that the money was brought into the Irish Exchequer. In 1650, Sweden was permitted, as a favour, to employ a hundred vessels in the

he world; but the fish cannot be expected to come on shore unsought: they must be found, followed, and netted. The fishing-boats from the west of Scotland are very successful; and they often return the fish to Ireland, cured, which had been taken out of the Irish bays. "I tested this fact in Galway," says Mr. S. C. Hall. "I had ordered fish for dinner; two salt haddocks were brought to me. On inquiry, I ascertained w

e Galway market is often destitute of fish, while the Claddagh people are starving. On one occasion an English company was formed for the purpose of fishing and curing fish at Galway, as is now done at Yarmouth, Grimsby, Fraserburgh, Wick, and other places. Operations were commenced, but so soon as the English fishermen put to sea in their boats, the Claddagh men fell upon th

believe it to be an unlucky fish, and that it will rot the net that takes it. The Cornishmen do not think so, for they find the pilchard fishing to be a source of great wealth. The pilchards strike upon th

t. Some thought it was the Fenians, others the Home Rulers, others the Irish-American Dynamiters. Nothing of the kind! It was only a fleet of Scotch smacks, sixty-four in number, fishing for herring between Torry I

rish fleet of fishing-boats fell off from 27,142 in 1823 to 7181 in 1878; and in 1882 they were still further

0 mackerel were lately taken at a single haul; and Clew Bay is often alive with fish. In Scull Bay and Crookhaven, near Cape C

Scull Bay before breakfast. Each of these mackerel was worth twopence in Cork market, thirty miles off. Yet the people round about, many of whom were short of food, were doing nothing to catch them, but expect

nets and their boats; they sail for Ireland, catch the fish, and sell them to the Irish people. With them, industry brings capital, and forms the fertile seed-ground of further increase of boats and nets. Surely what is done by the Manxmen, the Cornishmen, and the Cockenziemen, might be done by the Irishmen. The difficulty is not to be got over by lamenting about it, or by staring at

g his observations concerning the trade and commerce of England, in which he showed that the Dutch were almost monopolising the fishing trade, and consequently adding to their shipping, commerce, and wealth. "Surely," he says, "the stream is necessary to be turned to the good of this kingdom, to whose sea-

turn commodities; whereby they are enabled yearly to build 1000 ships and vessels." The prosperity of Amsterdam was then so great that it was said that Amsterdam was "founded on herring-bones." Tobias Gentleman published in 1614 his treatise on 'En

tleman's indignation was, that the Dutchmen caught the fish and sold them to the Yarmouth herring-mongers "for ready gold, so that it amounteth to a great sum of money, which money doth never come again into England." "We are daily scorned," he says, "by these Hollanders, for being so neglige

our other most profitable Trades in all Parts of the World." It was even proposed to compel "all Sorts of begging Persons and all other poor People, all People condemned for less Crimes than Blood," as well as "all Persons in Prison for Debt," to take part in this fishing trade! But this was not

the east coast of Scotland and the Orkney and Shetland Isles, until now the herring fishery of Scotland forms one of the greatest industries in the Uni

e Wick of the West. Modern society in Ireland, as everywhere else, can only be transformed through the agency of labour, industry, and commerce-inspired by the spirit of work, and maintained by the accumulations of capital. The first end of all labour

nd the laws are the same, as those which prevail in other parts of Ireland. Belfast is the great centre of Irish manufactures and commerce, and what she has been able to do might be done elsewhere, with the same amou

ultivated. The drill-rows are more regular; the hedges are clipped; the weeds no longer hide the crops, as they sometimes do in the far west. The country is also adorned with copses, woods, and avenues. A new crop begins to appear in the fields-a crop almost peculiar to the neighbourhood of Belfast. It is

-being pervades the district. Lurgan is reached, so celebrated for its diapers; and the fields there about are used as bleaching-greens. Then comes Lisburn, a populous and thriving town, the inhabitants of which are mostly engaged in their staple trade, the manufacture of damasks. This was really the first centre of the linen trade. Though Lord Strafford, during his government of Ireland, encouraged the f

ring town. As we enter the streets, everybody seems to be alive. What struck William Hutton when he first saw Birmingham, might be said of Belfast: "I was surprised at the place, but more at the people. They possessed a vivacity I had never before beheld. I had been among dreamers, but now I saw men awake. Their very step

ns, and enable them to maintain themselves and families upon the fruits of their labour-instead of living upon poor-rates levied from the labours of others, or who are forced, by want of employment, to banish

g in the enterprise of individuals, and developed by the

it is by patient industry only that they can open up a pathway to the enduring prosperity of the country. There is no Eden in nature. The earth might have continued a rude uncultivated wi

d up for those who were about to cross the currents of Lagan Water. In 1575, Sir Henry Sydney writes to the Lords of the Council: "I was offered skirmish by MacNeill Bryan Ertaugh at my passage over the water at Belfast, which I caused to be answered, and passed over without loss

ation in any towns or villages." In 1659, Belfast contained only 600 inhabitants: Carrickfergus was more important, and had 1312 inhabitants. But about 1660, the Long Bridge over the Lagan was built, and prosperity began to dawn upon the little town. It was situated at the head of a navigable lough, and formed an outlet for t

every successive census, the progress made was extraordinary, until now the population of Belfast amounts to over 225,000. There is scarcely an instance of so large a rate of increase in the British Islands, save in the exceptional case of Middle

ilding materials. He gradually increased the number of his workmen, and proceeded to build a few sloops. He reclaimed some land from the sea, and made a shipyard and graving dock on what was known as Corporation Ground. In November 1800 the new graving dock, near the bridge, was opened for the reception of vessels. It was

d to tug the vessels up the windings of the Lough, which it did at the rate of three miles an hour, to the astonishment of everybody. Seven years later, the steamboat Rob Roy was put on between Glasgow and Belfast. But these vessels had been built in Scotland. It was not until 1826 that the first steamboat, the chieftain, was built in Belfast, by the same William Ritchie. Then, in 1838, the

th century the linen manufacture had made but little progress. In 1680 all Ireland did not export more than 6000L. worth annually. Drogheda was then of greater importance than Belfast. But with the settlement of the persecuted Hugnenots in Ulster, and especially through the energetic lab

ot be possible for hand labour to supply the amount of linen now turned out by the aid of machinery. It would require three times the entire population of Ireland to spin and weave, by the old spinning-wheel and hand-loom methods, t

Rope-work Company, and the shipbuilding works of Harland and Wolff. There we passed through the roar of the iron forge, the clang of the Nasmyth hammer, and the intermittent glare of the furnaces-all telling of the novel appliances of modern shipbuilding, and the power of the modern steam-engine. I prefer to give a brief account of this latter undert

e, though it had already made a fair start in commerce and industry. As our steamer approached the head of the Lough, a large number of labourers were observed-with barrows, picks, and spades-scooping out and wheeling up the slob and mud of the estuary, for the purpose of forming what is now known as Queen's Island, on the eastern side of the river Lagan. The work was conducted by William Dargan, the famous Irish contractor; and its object was to mak

ive docks and tidal basins were added; while provision was made, in laying out the reclaimed land at the entrance of the estuary, for their future extension and enlargement. The town of Belfast was by these means gradually placed in immediate connection by sea with the principal western ports of England and Scotland,-steamships of large burden now leaving it daily for Liverpool, Glasgow, Fleetwood, Barrow, and Ardrossan. The ships entering the port of Belfast in 1883 were 7508, of 1,526

cturers shipped off 53,163 packages, and 24,263 cwts. of aerated waters to England, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. While Ireland produces no wrought iron, though it contains plenty of iron-stone,-and Belfast has to import all the iron which it consumes,-yet one engineering firm alone, that of Combe, Barbour, and Combe, employs 1500 highly-paid mechanics, and ships off its iron machinery to

the finest and largest steamships which navigate the Atlantic and Pacific. It all comes from the power of individuality, and furnishes a splendid example for Dublin, Cork, Waterford, and Limerick, each of which is provided by nature with magnificent harbours, with fewer of those difficu

sed for shipbuilding purposes. Robert Hickson and Co. then commenced operations by laying down the Mary

nts on Queen's Island were acquired by Mr. E. J. Harland (afterwards Harland and Wolff), since w

Watt and Boulton of Belfast. At the beginning of their great enterprise, their works occupied about four acres of land; they now occupy over thirty-six acres. The firm has imported not less than tw

t of the ships turned out. The number of persons employed in the works is 3920; and the weekly wages paid to them is 4000L.

deposits in the Savings Bank to the amount of 230,289L., besides 158,064L. in the Post Office Savings Banks.[22] Nearly all the better class working people of the town live in separate dwellings,

of Messrs. Macilwaine and Lewis, employing about four hundred men, and of Messrs. Workman and Clarke, employing about a thousand. The heads of both these fi

olff. They have given Belfast not only a potency for good, but a world-wide reputation. Their energies overflow. Mr. Harland is the active and ever-prudent Chairman of the most important of the local boards, the Harbour Trust of Belfast, and exerts himself to promote

cres of which are under roofing. Although the whole of the raw material is imported from abroad from Russia, the Phili

industry can enrich and bless their country. The following brief memoir of the career of Mr. Harland has b

s for Ch

e Cork Examiner,

evoted to the growth of wheat; there was a total decrease of 114,871 acres in the land

stract for the Uni

vings Banks, 31st December, 1882, 1,925,440; to the credit of d

year, were: in Dublin, 31,321L.; in Antrim, 23,328L.; in

ting drinks-beer, porter, stout, and whisky. Brewing and distilling

, 11th Ju

barrels) caught round the coast (at 25s. the barrel) was 935,907L., thereby exceeding the estimated annual rental of the county by 69,0

ificent fish lie rotting in the sun. The sides of Kinsale Harbour are strewn with them, and frequently, when they have become a little 'touched,' whole boat-loads are thrown overboard into the water. This great waste is to be attributed to scarcity of hands to salt the fish and wa

Paper by Richard Valpy on "The Resources

ospect of a Lon

dequate to the wants of the population that fully 150,000L. worth of ling, cod, and herring are annually imported from Norway, Newfoundland, and Scotland, the vesse

he Midland and Great Western Railway, took place before the "

traffic of any impor

ies that we can.... But the Galway fisheries, where one wo

l-"What is the

ier at Buffin, in Clew Bay, and I said, 'Will you join me in the application? I am told it is a place that swarms with fish, and if we had a pier there the fishermen will have some security, and the

went to the west coast of Ireland they would be a

y, and what was the consequence? The Irish fishermen, who inhabit a region in the neighbourhood of Galway, called Claddagh

ill neither fish themselves n

to be so."-Minutes

e Derry

pectors of Irish F

Irish coast. Mr. Brady reports on the abundance of herring and other fish all round the coast. Shoals of herrings "remained off nearly the entire coast of Ireland from August till

ime of the year, weather permitting." At Belmullet, "the shoals of fish off the coast, particularly herring and mackerel, are

ian Miscellany

eian Miscella

gdom, and the perfection to which the same is brought in that part of the country has been greatly owing to the skill and industry of the said Crommelin." In a history of the linen trade, published at Belfast, it is said that "the dignity which that enterprising man imparted to labour, and the halo which his example cast around physical exertion, had the best effect in raising the tone of popular feeling, as well among the patricians as among the peasants of the north of Ireland. This love of indus

History of B

the power-looms, belong to Ireland, that "the Irish linen and associated trades at present give employment to 176,303 persons; and it is estimated that the capita

f coal in 1883 amounte

tal number of depositors in the Post Office Savings banks in the Parliamentary borough of Belfast is 10,827 and the amo

, consists in the amounts of deposits made with the various Limited Companies,