Parnell And Protection

Some four year9 ago Charles Stewart I'arnell said in a speech, aa reported in the weekly cdition of the Dublin Freeman's Journal of August 22, 1885, as follows: Thls qnestioa ot the protection of tho Industries of Ireland Is one of vital lmportance for the natiuD. We havo toconsider the Interest of the artlsans of the towns and of the laborera In the country, and, as I have already Htated, lt Is my nrra bollevö that lt will lm iinpussible lor us to keep thls great portion of the laborlng classes at home and in comfort without protection to Irlsh lndustrlrs. Il Is a problem which requlres the utmosl i'xi'i-t luit on all our paris to solve. Tlif Ufo of Ireland Is dependent upon the prescrvation of her bone and sinew. Our populatlon ha dimlnlshed at the rate of a mllllon a decade during the past forty years ; lt is time that that sbould be put a stop to, and t liat lt shoukl be possible for the laborers, tli" artisatiH and mochantes of Ireland to lie, Mirive and prosper at home. By a singular coincidence that utteraace was almost simultaneous with Mr. Cleveland's attank on the protection of American home industries, which roused every British free-trader, American Cobden Clubber and mugwump to their uttermost exertions to crush American labor. Ahvays remembering that those three classes adverted to above never agitate or move, excepting in the interest if not at the dictation of England, it does seetn as if they took alarm at Mr. ParneU's delineation of how British free-trade luid devastated and depopulated Ireland in the forty years of its existence and fondly hoped to initlate the same miseries in this country by installinj; the same causes which had crushed Ireland. For this country had for the saine forty years, with a few brief interinissions, pursued exactly the opposite policy to that which Mr. Parnell ascribes the devastation of Ireland, with exactly opposite re. sults. As Mr. Parnell correctly said, the population of Ireland had diminished a a million for each ten years since the adoption ot the British free-trade policy, whlle our country has jjained over ten times that nutnber during that time. To be entirely accurate aa to the latter we will quote census figures thus: Populatlon In 1850 23,191,87G Populallonln lXtiO 81,443,821 Population in 1870 38,558,371 Populatlon in 1880 50.155.783 Population lu ÏSÏHI, estlmated t:5,uu0,0UU Tlius showing a gain bi' America under protection in forty years of an average of population of over ten millionsof people, while Ireland at the same time, under a British free-trade regime, lost four milHons, or a million each decade. Another strong point of contrast is tlie fact that while inillions in that time fled froin Ireland to escape the varied curses of British free-trade, they sought refuge in this republic where the opposite policy of protection to home labor prevails. Would it not be the very relineinent of ciuelty if this country, afler havimj vvelcomed tliose victims ilying from the British curses whicli had devastated their old homes, should import the same disseminutor of horrors that had so cursed the exiles in their birthplaccs and banished them from tlie homes oftheir yontfa and the graves of their forefathers ? All civilization was horriñed a few years ngo by the mere suggestion that microbes whicli bore the genus of yellow fever, small-pox and other pestilences had been imported into the hotels of this city in the hope of killlng our citizens. If Ihat horror was expressed in time of war, whose puipose is destruction, yrhat language can depiet the vlleness of even tryin to import in time of peace British free-trade into this country, which, in additiun to its economie mischiefs in India and Ireland, so engender pestilence that in the former country at least it was known as the British cholera?