Samuel Smiles

“ It is easy to pull down; it is very difficult to build up. The hands that cannot erect a hovel may 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 countries by lofty mountains, as well as by hostile tariffs; and yet Switzerland is one of the most prosperous nations in Europe, because governed and regulated by intelligent industry. Let Ireland look to Switzerland, and she need not despair. ”

“ If there be no protection for life, liberty, property, and the fruits of accumulated industry, government becomes comparatively useless, and society is driven back upon its first principles.
Capital is the most sensitive of all things. It flies turbulence and strife, and thrives only in security and freedom. ”

“ They will find plenty of these in other parts of Ireland. But to found industries that give employment to large numbers of persons, 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 themselves from their own country, to emigrate and settle among strangers, where they know not what may become of them — is a most honourable and important source of influence, and worthy of every encouragement. ”

“ But the sea about Ireland is still less explored than the land. All round the Atlantic seaboard of the Irish coast are shoals of herring and mackerel, which might be food for men, but are at present only consumed by the multitudes of sea-birds which follow them. ”

“ 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 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 difficulties of access which Belfast has triumphed over; and each of which might be the centre of some great industrial enterprise, provided only there were patriotic men willing to embark their capital, perfect protection for the property invested, and men willing to work rather than to strike. ”

“ Wheat can be bought better and cheaper in America, and imported into Ireland ground into flour. The consequence is, that the men who worked the soil, as well as the men who ground the corn, are thrown out of employment, and there is nothing left for them but subsistence upon the poor-rates, emigration to other countries, or employment in some new domestic industry.
Ireland is by no means the "poor Ireland" that she is commonly supposed to be. The last returns of the Postmaster-General show that she is growing in wealth. Irish thrift has been steadily at work during the last twenty years. ”

“ The land is the same, the climate is the same, and 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 amount of energy and enterprise. But it is not land, or climate, or altered laws that are wanted. It is men to lead and direct, and men to follow with anxious and persevering industry. It is always the Man society wants. ”

“ This would not only give profitable occupation to the unemployed, but enable Ireland to become an increasingly exporting nation. We are informed by 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 the bowers of paradise." The main use of government is protection against the weaknesses and selfishness of human nature. ”

“ A gentleman of Cork one day borrowed a common rod and line from a Cornish miner in his employment, and caught fifty-seven mackerel from the jetty in 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 expecting Providence to supply their wants. Providence, however, always likes to be helped. Some people forget that the Giver of all good gifts requires us to seek for them by industry, prudence, and perseverance. ”

“ 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 a plant with a very slender erect green stem, which, when full grown, branches at the top into a loose corymb of blue flowers. This is the flax plant, the cultivation and preparation of which gives employment to a great number of persons, and is to a large extent the foundation of the prosperity of Belfast.
The first appearance of the linen industry of Ireland, as we approach Belfast from the west, is observed at Portadown. ”

“ Parnell's speech was where he urged his audience "not to use any article of the manufacture of any other country except Ireland, where you can get up an Irish manufacture." The true remedy is to make Irish articles of the best and cheapest, and 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 be referred to. ”

“ The influence of Belfast extends far out into the country. As you approach it from Sligo, you begin to see that you are nearing a place where industry has accumulated capital, and where it has been invested in cultivating and beautifying the land. After you pass Enniskillen, the fields become more highly cultivated. 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. ”

“ If the manufacturing population of that town were to rely for their maintenance on the demand for their productions at home, they would simply starve. But they make the best and the cheapest goods of their kind, and hence the demand for them is world-wide.
There is an abundant scope for the employment of capital and skilled labour in Ireland. During the last few years land has been falling rapidly out of cultivation. ”

“ The fishing village of Claddagh, at Galway, is more decaying than ever. It seems to have suffered from a bombardment, like the rest of the town. The houses of the fishermen, when they fall in, are left in ruins. While the French, and English, and Scotch boats leave the coast laden with fish, the Claddagh men remain empty-handed. They will only fish on "lucky days," so that the Galway market is often destitute of fish, while the Claddagh people are starving. ”

“ 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 all parts of the world. ”

“ In Plutarch's Lives, we are told that Themistocles said on one occasion, "'Tis true that I have never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute, but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Provided there is security for life and property, and an absence of intimidation, we believe that capital will become invested in the fishing industry of Ireland; and that the result will be peace, food, and prosperity. ”

“ The population has also largely increased. When I visited Belfast in 1840, the town contained 75,000 inhabitants. They are now over 225,006, or more than trebled, — Belfast being the tenth town, in point of population, in the United Kingdom.
The spirit and enterprise of the people are illustrated by the variety of their occupations. They do not confine themselves to one branch of business; but their energies overflow into nearly every department of industry. Their linen manufacture is of world-wide fame ”

“ It would not 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, the amount of linen cloth now annually manufactured by the operatives of Belfast alone. There are now forty large spinning-mills in Belfast and the neighbourhood, which furnish employment to a very large number of working people. ”

“ The takes of fish have been so enormous and unprecedented that buyers can scarcely be found, even when, as now, mackerel are selling at one shilling per six score. Piles of magnificent fish lie rotting in the sun. ”

“ In 1650, Sweden was permitted, as a favour, to employ a hundred vessels in the Irish fishery; and the Dutch in the reign of Charles I. were admitted to the fisheries on the payment of 30,000L. In 1673, Sir W. Temple, in a letter to Lord Essex, says that "the fishing of Ireland might prove a mine under water as rich as any under ground." [9]
The coasts of Ireland abound in all the kinds of fish in common use — cod, ling, haddock, hake, mackerel, herring, whiting, conger, turbot, brill, bream, soles, plaice, dories, and salmon. ”

“ Notwithstanding the diminished population, the fish captured round the coast is so inadequate 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 vessels bearing these cargoes, as they approach the shores of Ireland, frequently sailing through large shoals of fish of the same description as they are freighted with! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 excelled-- whether in the pursuits of agriculture under a midday sun in the field, or amongst the vast looms in the factory districts — by the people of any country on the face of the globe. ”

“ This love of industry did much to break down the national prejudice in favour of idleness, and cast doubts on the social orthodoxy of the idea then so popular with the squirearchy, that those alone who were able to live without employment had any rightful claim to the distinctive title of gentleman.... ”

“ The native fishery also extended northward, along 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 United Kingdom, and gives employment, directly or indirectly, to close upon half a million of people, or to one-seventh of the whole population of Scotland. ”

“ Towards the end of the seventeenth 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 Huguenots in Ulster, and especially through the energetic labours of Crommelin, Goyer, and others, the growth of flax was sedulously cultivated, and its manufacture into linen of all sorts became an important branch of Irish industry. ”

“ The earth might have continued a rude uncultivated wilderness, but for human energy, power, and industry. These enable man to subdue the wilderness, and develop the potency of labour. "Possunt quia credunt posse." They must conquer who will.
Belfast is a comparatively modern town. ”

“ Nearly all the better class working people of the town live in separate dwellings, either rented or their own property. There are ten Building Societies in Belfast, in which industrious people may store their earnings, and in course of time either buy or build their own houses.
The example of energetic, active men always spreads. Belfast contains two other shipbuilding yards, both the outcome of Harland and Wolff's enterprise ”

“ 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 shipbuilding trade has been one of the most rapidly developed, especially of late years. In 1805 the number of vessels frequenting the port was 840; whereas in 1883 the number had been increased to 7508, with about a million and a-half of tonnage; while the gross value of the exports from Belfast exceeded twenty millions sterling annually. In 1819 the first steamboat of 100 tons was used 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. ”