Page:Considerations on the state of Ireland.pdf/4

 of a deck passage to Liverpool or Glasgow from four to five shillings, the migration will inevitably go on. With wages in New York at four shillings and upwards, and the cost of the passage not more than from five to six guineas, the emigration will inevitably go on.

Nothing can show more plainly how natural and spontaneous the movement is, than the results of the starting of the Atlantic steamers from Galway. The persons who were zealous for the success of that enterprise regarded it as likely to do something towards enriching Ireland, and so improving the condition of the population at home. But wherever the vent is opened, the people begin to stream out through it, and the astonished Times complains that the most important branch of trade which the establishment of the packet station has developed is the export of Irishmen.

Every one that goes makes it easier for others to follow. The members of a family who are left behind feel the difficulties of emigration to be greatly diminished, when they have relations already settled and thriving in the new country. In joining them, they will more easily find the employment that suits them, and they will sooner feel themselves at home in the new social element. The cheerful letters they receive from those who have preceded them rouse or strengthen the desire to go, and the warm-hearted brother or sister sends home money to assist in paying the passage, or in procuring the humble outfit necessary for the voyage. We are all familiar with the story of the remittances which the Irish emigrants, with a noble and touching self-forgetfulness, have sent to their relations in the old country—remittances which, in the single year 1853, amounted to nearly a million and a-half. These gifts, arriving from time to time, have a double effect: they supply the most convincing evidence of the prosperity of those who have gone before, and they facilitate the movements of those who wish to follow.

And here let me remark that, though I have stated the question as one of wages alone, and though the simple difference of wages would in the end produce the entire effects we observe and are destined yet to observe, there are other considerations which ought not to be left out of sight. Besides the desire of material prosperity, there is also in the hearts of many of our people a spirit of ambition, which at home sometimes rather engenders discontent than stimulates exertion. The aspiring Irishman must observe with interest, that the absence of an aristocracy in America and the British colonies leaves far more open than in our older community the avenues to the highest distinctions of the State. In the great republic Irish blood did not prevent a Jackson from rising to the presidential chair; and men on whom the ban of law had been pronounced at home, in Australia and Canada have been ministers of the crown.

But, it may be said, wages are rising, and this rise will put a speedy end to the emigration. This opinion I cannot adopt. So long as the rise does not approach very nearly to equalisation with the American rate, I think the effect of it will be rather to stimulate than to slacken the movement. It is true, the tempta-