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
occupatio