will spare them the
pains of enterprise, and will show how large industries can be created
and sustained without capital, without business knowledge, without
technical skill, and for the sole purpose of affording the shiftless
population of Ballyshannon regular wages at the week's end. The
gentlemen who lean over the quaint bridge, with its twelve arches and
sharply-pointed buttresses, are merely waiting for the factories,
which are to spring from the earth fully-equipped at a wave of the
enchanter's hand, to be a blessing to the whole world while fulfilling
their chief mission of finding employment for the people of Ireland.
Meantime the Ballyshannoners are bitterly wroth with England because
she has not hurried up with the desired factories long ages ago. They
smoke thick twist and expectorate into the river, talking moodily of
the selfish Saxon, who instead of looking after them looks after
himself, and praising Tim Healy, whose spare cash is invested in a
factory in Scotland. Tim knows his countrymen; but, although his
cleverness is by them much admired, they do not know how really clever
he is. If they could realise the fact that Tim declines to invest in
Ireland they might admire him still more. The great drawback to Irish
enterprise lies in the fact that Irishmen who have brains enough to
make money have brains enough to invest it out of Ireland. They will
not trust Irishmen, nor will they rely on Irish industry. Ballyshannon
is waiting for the impersonal Somebody or the shadowy Something that
is to come forward and put everything right. Galway is so waiting,
Limerick is so waiting, Cork is so waiting, Westport, Newport, Donegal
are so waiting. It never occurs to them to do something for
themselves. When the suggestion is made they become irate, and
excitedly ask, What could we do? How are we to begin? Where are we to
find the money? Who is to take the first step? They fail to see that
the settlement towns have long since answered these queries, and that
the capacity to do so marks the difference in the breeds. These
hopeless, helpless, Keltic Irishmen are unfit for self-government.
They require the india-rubber tube and the feeding-bottle. They want
to be spoon-fed and patted on the back when they choke. To instance
the Scots settlements is to madden them. These thriving communities
are a standing reproach, and cannot be explained away. Saxon Strabane
flourishes, while Keltic Donegal declines, the latter having a