I I 



poverty. The war will have destroyed all the hopes of 

 increased prosperity based in late years on the returns 

 of the Irish trade in imports and exports. 



The one Irish industry which can swell and expand 

 ;and create wealth sufficient to offset the inevitable wan- 

 ing for a time of our manufacturing industries is agri- 

 culture. Increased production of wealth in the land 

 leads to increased consumption and the consequent em- 

 ployment of people in the towns to supply the demands 

 of the country producers. In spite of all the talk about 

 capturing German trade, the real truth is, and it cannot 

 IDC controverted by any feather-headed economist^, that 

 when a continent, and that the greatest industrial 

 wealth creating centre in the world, is at war, and pro- 

 duction ceases, the. power of consumption ceases. Such 

 nations not being able to produce or sell, are not able 

 to buy except by using capital, and neutral countries 

 unable to sell their produce are also limited in their 

 purchases. The markets of the world while the war con- 

 tinues and some time after will be poor markets except 

 for the farmer, whose products none can dispense with, 

 -and the makers of armaments, who will make their for- 

 tunes while the war lasts. I would like to think that 

 the terms of peace will put it out of the power of the 

 makers of engines of destruction to make any more 

 fortunes, but I am afraid that, not only during the war, 

 but long after, makers of munitions of war will be fever- 

 ishly engaged in replacing the wastage of battleships, tor- 

 pedoes, guns, rifles, shells and other scientific inventions 

 of the devil. Ireland will have little or no share in this 

 ^vork, and the Irish farmer must be the Atlas who will 

 for a time support the Irish world. After the war is 

 'over, men will be returning in hundreds of thousands to 

 industrial life, and they will find the constriction of 

 trade so great that it will be years, may be, before they 

 are reabsorbed. If they leave their country in despair 

 tlu-y will never return. The one hope for helping Ireland 

 -over the darkening abyss of the next years lies in tht 



