Galway In Days Gone By

Railway paralysis

Is there no group of men of good-will in Ireland who can prepare a way to bridge the present apparently irreconcilable differences between the railway men and the British Government? From small beginnings, the trouble has daily widened.

To-day passenger service is paralysed over three-fourths of the railway system of Ireland. A state of unrest and uncertainty prevails. Our commercial interests are being ruined. Tourist traffic is largely held up, and many districts are suffering severely.

Those who speak glibly about paralysing the entire railway system of the country can scarcely realise the significance of their words, or the dire results that such a state of things would bring about for the country.

It is better to examine calmly the source and extension of the trouble, and to see if a way out cannot be found.

The doctrine of refusing to handle munitions of war was first propounded by the Labour Party in England, who placed a ban on the sending of munitions by Britain to Poland to enable the Polish Government to make war on the Russians.

English Labour, whose views find no representation in the present coalition Cabinet, resorted to “direct action” to enforce its will. Just as the National Volunteers in Ireland first intimated the policy practised so successfully by Sir Edward Carson, so Irish Labour quickly took the hint from the heads of the principal transport organisations across the Channel.

In the result, the dockers at North Wall, with the tentative support of British Labour, refused to handle munitions that were being conveyed to Ireland by the British Government for the suppression of the Irish people, notwithstanding the fact that these munitions were loaded by fellow-workers on the other side from whose leaders the doctrine had originated.

Water power

An interesting sidelight on the manner in which the English Government in Ireland has allowed Irish resources to remain undeveloped in order that English trade may flourish, is found in the Government’s treatment of Ireland’s water power.

Not one of the 237 rivers of Ireland has been used for industrial purposes, although in these rivers there is immense industrial power. It is estimated that the rivers Shannon, Corrib, Erne and Bann could produce 100,000 horse-power which would mean a saving of 700,000 tons of coal every year.

The main rivers in Ireland could in many cases be used to work the mineral deposits which lie close to them. The total horse-power which the Irish watercourses are capable of producing is variously estimated but it is established that at least 250,000 horse-power could be developed.

This would mean that Ireland would save 1,750,000 tons of coal every year. But as England supplies the greater quantity of coal burned in this country and exploits it commercially, nothing has ever been done to harness the white coal of Ireland’s rivers. And nothing will ever be done until Ireland can take her own destiny into her own hands.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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