Although our bill is more than last year it is not so much as in 1904, and is £523,054 or 2s. a head less than 1903. In Ireland the consumption of home produced spirits has decreased from 5,377,452 gallons in 1882-1883 to 3,632,665 gallons in 1906-1907-an amount of 1,744,787 gallons or 32.4 per cent. But the figures for beer have steadily advanced from 2,097,017 barrels in 1882-1883 to 2,374,753 barrels in 1906-1907. -a total of 1,277,736 barrels or 60.9 per cent. The figures in this paragraph are for the years ending 31st March, whereas Dr. Burns' are for the calendar year, hence the apparent discrepancy. It inust be borne in mind that an estimate based on the known production and importation of liquor shows of necessity the minimum expenditure, as it makes no allowance for adulteration or grogging, no allowance for the fact that a half pint tumbler almost never is filled to the very top, unless the froth be taken into account, and no allowance for illicit still and the like. But even if the actual amount spent in liquor in Ireland be taken at £13,787,970 it can hardly be said that this is the cost to the nation. 44.5 per cent of all cases dealt with summarily by the police are for drunkenness, and it is estimated that at least 75 per cent, are directly due to drink. At a low estimate one-third of the cases entering the asylums would not be there but for drink. Add to the above figure the cost of dealing with these and with a large part of the other crime and disorder of the state and it will be easy to admit the truth of the declaration of a great statesman when ne said "Drink is the Curse of the Country! It ruins the fortunes, it injures the health, it destroys the lives of one in twenty-I am afraid I would be right in saying one in ten-of our population." Or of a royal prince who stigmatised drink as "the only terrible enemy whom England has to fear." If England has to fear it who drinks out of her wealth, surely Ireland has who drinks out of her poverty. W. R. WIGHAM. Early Irish Trade and Commerce. "Ireland is the poorest of all civilized countries with every advantage to make it one of the richest."-Dean Swift. The early European historians regarded the records of trade and commerce as of scant importance. The references they have made to these subjects, so interesting to our generation, are casual and cursory. However, our unique antiquities have, to an extent, made up for their neglect. One of our greatest archivists and archæologists, J. T. Gilbert, has thus expounded their lesson : "The earliest tribes that reached our Island, though removed so far from the centre of light and wisdom, must still have been familiar with all science necessary to preserve existence and organise a new country into a human habitation. They cleared the forests, worked the mines, built chambers for their dead, after the manner of their kindred left in Tyre and Greece, wrought arms, defensive and offensive, such as the heroes of Marathon used against the long-haired Persian; they raised altar and pillar stones, still standing amongst us, mysterious and eternal symbols of a simple primitive creed; they had bards, priests, and lawgivers, the old tongue of Shinar, the dress of Nineveh, and the ancient faith, whose ritual was prayer and sacrifice." The second stream of invaders "brought with them the Syrian arts and civilisation, such as dyeing and weaving, working in gold, silver, and brass, besides the written characters, the same that Cadmus afterwards gave to Greece, and which remained in use amongst the Irish for above a thousand years, until modified by St. Patrick into their present form to assimilate them to the Latin. "Continued intercourse with their Tyrian kindred soon filled Ireland with the refinements of a luxurious civilisation. From various sources we learn than in those ancient times, the native dress was costly and picturesque, and the habits and modes of living of the chiefs splendid and Oriental. The high born and wealthy wore tunics of fine linen of im the mense width, girdled with gold, and with flowing sleeves after the eastern fashion. The fringed cloak or cuchula, with a hood, after the Arab mode, was clasped on shoulders with a golden brooch. Golden circlets, of beautiful and classic form, confined their long, flowing hair, crowned with which the chiefs sat at the banquet, or went to war. Sandals upon the feet, and bracelets and signet rings, of rich and curious workmanship, completed the costume. The ladies wore the silken robes and flowing veils of Persia, or rolls of linen wound round the head like the Egyptian Isis, the hair curiously plaited down the back and fastened with gold or silver bodkins, while the neck and arms were profusely covered with jewels. These relics of a civilisation, 3,000 years old may be still gazed upon by modern eyes in the splendid and unrivalled antiquarian collection of the Royal Irish Academy. The golden circlets, the fibulaes, torques, bracelets, rings, etc., worn by the native race, are not only costly in value, but often so singularly beautiful in the working out of minute artistic details, that modern art is not merely unable to imitate them, but even unable to comprehend how the ancient workers in metals could accomplish works of such delicate, almost microscopic minuteness of finish." For successive centuries, this race, half Tyrian and half Greek, held undisputed possession of Ireland, maintaining, it is said, constant intercourse with the parent state, and, when Tyre fell, commercial relations were continued with Carthage. * The amount of commerce or of native manufactures must have been considerable in Pagan Ireland. The Sea Laws in the Brehon Code point clearly to foreign trade. English writers maintain that Britain had much commercial intercourse with the Phoenicians and Carthagenians. French writers, too, aver that Marseilles traded with Ireland, as well as Britain. Our native writers confirm this opinion, for Greek merchants were in far away Wexford at the Fair of Carmen: There was a special market in that fair for the foreigners who sold silver and gold ornaments and other precious stuffs. The Roman geographers held such an important opinion of Ireland that they spoke of it as lying be *See Keller : and Dunlop : "Glass in the Old World," for further information tween Spain and Italy. Tacitus, who flourished in the first century of the Christian era, tells us that the ports of Ireland were better known to merchants by reason of the abundance of commerce than those of Britain. Juvenal's "Satires" attest the important fact that Irish woollen goods were sold in Rome in his time, for he compares a certain Polémon to a dealer in cloth of Ireland and in the "white cloth" of Cahors : Hiberna tigetis niveique Cadurci. Ptolemy, the famous Alexandrian geographer, who lived in the reign of Antonius Pius, about the year A.D. 130, enumerates several illustrious cities in Ireland, three being seaports, seven inland. These must have been in existence some time, or he would not have found them worthy of such notice. Illustrious cities are not built by idleness or out of agriculture alone. Tigernach, one of the most trustworthy of the native annalists and other scribes, show that Dublin had achieved commercial importance at an early date [166 A.D.], for Eoghan Mor, King of Munster, broke his treaty with Con Ced Cathach, King of Ireland, when he found that his half of Ireland did not include that portion of Dublin harbour "which was commodious for traffic and visited by ships." Marcianus Heracleates, who flourished in the third century, records the presence of eleven illustrious cities in Hibernia. It is interesting to note tnat Ptolemy was almost coeval with Eoghan Mor. Cormac Mac Art, in his precepts to his son, Carbry, laid down as one of the rules to be followed by a wise king: To invite ships to import valuable wares across the sea. The Book of Rights, by numerous entries, clearly proves that Ireland had foreign commerce. Under the Pagan Irish kings three hundred vessels traded with Britain, and for a period-how long history does not state--and in the time of Breccán, grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages, fifty boats carried on commercial relations with Scotland. Foreign writers have declared that prePatrician Ireland was in commercial relationship with Spain, Gaul, and Belgium, and the Regius Professor of History at Cambridge, Professor Bury, working on wholly independent lines, has come to a like conclusion. The native writers, too, have attested to the fact that Gaul and Wales were in commercial relationship with Eire. Again, the hordes of Bury's "Life of St. Patrick." Roman coins, mainly of the Roman Republic, found, not merely along our coast line, from Antrim to Kerry, but even far inland, would prove that Ireland and the Roman Empire knew the advantages of mutual trade relationship. Some were, undoubtedly, the spoils of the Irish kings invading expeditions into the Roman dominions. For generations we have been taught that the Irish neither built cities nor pursued trade or commerce. Certainly a sixth century author of the "Life of St. Kevin' speaks of Dublin thus: "This city is powerful and warlike, and always ir.habited by men most hardy in battles, and most expert in fleets." Although the alleged builders of our seaports, the Norse, did not arrive in Ireland before the eighth century, according to all accredited historians, yet the Norse-Irish are not daunted. Jocelyn, the Norman monk, in his "Life of St. Patrick," makes the saint visit Dublin, of which a fancy picture is limned. A poem attributed to St. Benean (Patrick's disciple) is given in the Book of Rights: "The Blessing of Dublin." Here, the National Apostle is made to invoke: "Gift of commerce from ali parts, Bless stout Dublin town." That there was intercourse between Iceland, Norway, and other parts of Northern Europe and Ireland prior to 780 there is no doubt. What the nature of the Norse settlements were, prior to this date, in our Isle, there is no means of knowing. The riddle is to be solved by scholars. Alfred, King of the Northumbrian Saxons, lived in Ireland about the year 635. He has written a most interesting poem on his experiences. What concerns us here is that he found in Eirinn "much food, raiment, gold, silver, honey, wheat, health, prosperity, traffic, and cities." Yet "the Irish never traded and built no cities!"-until the "more sturdy races came." No wonder Irish history is rot encouraged in our schools. If it were we should commence to have pride of race and be more self-respectingmost undesirable qualities for those who ought to rejoice in being "happy English children" and to forget their "barbarous forefathers. Many of the historians of French commerce claim that early Gaul traded with Ireland. Francisque Michel states |