IRISH MANUFACTURES.
Within the past few months, a very decided interest has been awakened in the minds of enlightened and patriotic Irishmen in Dublin and other places, with regard to the importance and possibility of establishing various branches of Household Manufactures throughout the country. It is manifest that the general cheapness of Labor and Food, the facilities now enjoyed for communication, not only with Great Britain, but with all Europe and America also, and the extraordinary amount of unemployed and undeveloped capacity in Ireland, render the introduction of Manufactures at once eminently desirable and palpably feasible. Even though nothing could be immediately earned thereby, the simple diffusion of industrial skill and efficiency which must ensue from such introduction would be an inestimable gain to the peasantry of Ireland. But allow that all the idle poor of this island could in six months be taught how to earn six pence each per day, the aggregate benefit to the Irish and to mankind would be greater than that of all the gold mines yet discovered. The Poorhouse Unions could be nearly emptied in a year, and this whole population comfortably fed, clad and housed within the next three years. A beginning must be made with the simplest or household manufactures, for want of means to establish the more complex, costly and efficient branches, which require extensive Machinery and aggregation of Laborers; but if the first step be successfully taken, others are certain to follow. With abundant water-power and inexhaustible beds of fuel yet untouched, it is demonstrable that Manufactures of Cotton and Woolen, as well as Linen, might be prosecuted in Ireland even cheaper than in England, though the average recompense of Labor should thereby be doubled.
The first impulse to the Manufacture movement appears to have been given by Mr. Thomas Mooney, a gentleman well known to his countrymen throughout the United States, whence he returned some eighteen months ago. Primarily at his suggestion, a "Parent Board of Irish Manufacture" was organized in Dublin several months since, funds collected by voluntary subscription, an office opened, and a central school established, with a view to the qualification of teachers for the superintendence of auxiliary schools throughout the country. The enterprise was proceeding vigorously and with daily increasing momentum when Dissension, the evil genius of Ireland, broke out among its leading supporters, which has resulted in the division of the original Society into two, one of them sustaining Mr. Mooney and the other claiming to have taken the movement entirely out of his hands. Thus the case stands at present, but thus I trust it will not long remain. The enterprise is one of the most feasible and hopeful of the many that have been undertaken for the benefit of Ireland, and affords ample scope and occupation for all who may see fit to labor for its success. I trust that all differences will speedily be harmonized, and that the friends of the movement, once more united, may urge it forward to a most complete and beneficent triumph.