It is a growing expectation in Ireland that we are now about to witness one of the most momentous operations of society - the removal of a people en masse to a different shore. The half million who have got off with no great stir in the course of two years are but an advanced guard to the main body that follows. It must, indeed, be the most furious impulse or the direct necessity that can urge men at this season of this year to cast themselves on the deep, to brave the wide Atlantic, to be thrown on they know not what head-land or shoal, in the storms and the fogs which beset the wished-for shore, in and at the best to land in a country still ribbed with ice and buried in snow. Yet we were told the other day of ten emigrant vessels taking refuge in the Cove of Cork, of crowds waiting at other ports for a change of a passage, and of multitudes ejected from their holdings, and now lodging in towns with no other hope upon earth than once to put their feet on the shore of the New World. We believe it to be even as it is described. The failure of the staple crop, the burden of maintaining the victims of famine, the impossibility of paying rates upon small holdings, and the invincible objection to pay them upon holdings of any size; constitute an expellant force of which the like was never seen. Pauperism in all its bearings is depopulating the island. They who are paupers, and they who expect to be paupers, and they who loathe the thought of contributing their hard earnings to be squandered upon paupers, are equally out of heart and resolved to go elsewhere. When the mind is resolved, the means only are wanting. But among the many redeeming virtues of this intractable and unfortunate race is a strength of family affection which no distance, no tie, no pressure, no prosperity can destroy; and every one of the half million who have safely effected their retreat, consecrated his first earnings to the pious work of rescuing a parent, a brother, or a sister from Ireland.
What most contributes to this result more even than famine or any other actual event, is that the long-cherished dream of Irish nationality has utterly vanished away. That fond delusion is a thing of the past. O'Connell saw it fade away, and his spirit died within him. A few poor misguided creatures have tried to keep up the cause and blow it into life, but they are worse than dead. The impossible vision of a Celtic Republic, consisting of a million or two small but unhappy freeholders, making their own laws, choosing their own lords, and playing fast and loose with her Britannic Majesty, is now a nursery fable, and numbers with those superstitions which abound on St. Patrick's isle. But on that die (?) has the Celt staked all his pride and romance. That hope gone, he feels no other tie to his soil. Forced to give up the poetry of his national ambition, he is now ready to put up with the substance, and seek the solid benefits of land and employment in another soil. The fabulous and empiric nationality of O'Connell once exploded, little else survives of the national tie. Of all people in the world there are none who feel less mutual confidence than the Irish. That quality is the growth of industry, of cultivation, of arts, of institutions, of all that demonstrates the power of organised co-operation, and brings out the virtues that win mutual respect. The Irishman is painfully aware of his national weakness. His hope is now to rise, not on his strength, but on the strength of the thriving Transatlantic community.
And that we believe to be his only hope. Since it must be so - since so large a part of our British fellow-subjects must join a foreign allegiance, or a colony all but independent, we rejoice to see, in this inevitable event, the providential means of a beneficial mixture of races. The history of this island shows by how many invasions, conquests, compromises, and fusions of races the British character has attained its noble though composite excellence. A walk in our villages or streets, the survey of a market, a church, or a dinner table, will bear out the truth of history that Britons, Romans, Saxons, Danes, Normans, Dutch, Flemish, French, and even more races, go to the happy composition of an Englishman and English society. Hence the versatility, hence the enlarged sympathies of the race. It is ascribed to our position in a fluctuating climate, and temperate zone, that we are able to adapt ourselves to any region of the earth, and pass with little injury to extremes of heat and cold. To an unparalleled variety of national ingredients, and the kindred facts of our complex social state and mixed constitution, we owe it that we excel in so many departments of human ambitions, and enjoy so many internal sources of prosperity and happiness. The experience of our own good fortune makes us wish to see the Celtic race allied to more vigorous and fortunate elements. The fates, however, seem to forbid that fusion in these islands. The Celt calls Ireland his own, and is jealous of interlopers, while in England also our superior wealth and cultivation have created an Interval which can seldom be passed. Religion also stands in the way. That part, too, of our industrial system which would otherwise offer the best opening for union and improvement is too full and too fixed to admit a Celtic Immigration. A Connaughtman may bring his family into Manchester and hide them in a cellar, but he could hardly get a night's lodging in an agricultural village, except once a year, for himself and his sickle. Now America supplies the opportunities of national fusion and perfection which are impossible at home. In those vast and thinly-peopled countries labour is precious, has friends and elbow-room, finds openings and opportunities every where, and, what is more, feels itself neither intruder nor exclusive owner, but simply a free citizen on a free soil.
There is no better chance for the Celt than that which he now sees and eagerly grasps, of learning the agricultural and mechanical arts, and the power of self-government, among the enterprising, ingenious, industrious states diffused on the vast surface, and gather the profuse treasures of the new world. Providence at this crisis widens the openings and multiplies the opportunities of Europe's great outlet. The railroads, the river and lake communications of the States and British America have lately increased with unexampled rapidity. Within a few years the union has almost doubled its territory. Besides what it has won by the sword and negotiation from Mexico, it has lately secured by treaty from the Indian tribes an extent of fertile plains watered by the tributaries of Mississippi and Missouri as large as this island. To crown all, California, at this happy moment, reveals her hidden treasures, and invites myriads, who will leave their places to be filled by immigration. For every man who leaves New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia, or Baltimore for the fields of gold, one more is wanted from these islands. If, too, the tide of wealth flows in to the tithe of the expected amount, manufacture, trade, and commerce, will be stimulated to a degree which will readily absorb any amount of labour that we can supply. When such prospects are open, we cannot be blind to the opportunity. It avails little to lament that the States are no longer ours, that our remaining colonies hang over loosely, and that the emigrant loses or imperils the birthright of the British name. Old associations, a common faith, a common language, a common literature, and many common institutions, must supply the place of political union. It may possibly come to pass that the Celt, if he do now begin to disappear as a distinct race, will pass from a bad subject into a good ally.
