Galway is a declining town. It has docks, but no shipping;
bonded warehouses, but no commerce. It has a community of
fishermen at Claddagh, but the fisheries of the bay are
neglected. As one of the poor men of the place exclaimed,
"Poverty is the curse of Ireland." On looking at Galway from the
Claddagh side, it seems as if to have suffered 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, and the inefficient at home. "The
labourer," said the late President Garfield, "has but one
commodity to sell--his day's work, it is his sole reliance. He
must sell it to-day, or it is lost for-ever." And as the poor
Irishman cannot sell his day's labour, he must needs emigrate to
some other country, where his only commodity may be in demand.
While at Galway, I read with interest an eloquent speech
delivered by Mr. Parnell at the banquet held in the Great Hall of
the Exhibition at Cork. Mr. Parnell asked, with much reason, why
manufactures should not be established and encouraged in the
South of Ireland, as in other parts of the country. Why should
not capital be invested, and factories and workshops developed,
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.
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