THE DIFFICULIIES OF INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISE IN IRELAND.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] am an old guinea-pig. I assist in the direction of four or five Companies of more or less importance. I receive, on an average, two prospectuses a day of new Companies, and I have one or two interviews every week with persons anxious to secure my services as chairman, director, or trustee. I have also a large circle of friends, many of them much younger than myself, who are good enough to consult me on their own schemes. One day last week, one of these friends brought to me a prospectus the contents of which appeared to me very- interesting on public grounds, and I endeavoured to give such advice as would enable its promoters to attract the attention of the investing public. It was a large industrial scheme for a great city in Ireland. After stating that my own engage- ments were too numerous for me to take the chairmanship, my friend and I sat down to consider the names of certain gentlemen to whom we imagined a seat at such a Board would be satis- factory. We both of us suggested the name of a considerable proprietor in the West of Ireland, whose estate has always. been liberally administered and improved, and who is widely appreciated in the official and political world. Alas ! he knew Ireland too well. Employment of this kind is in no way obnoxious to him ; in fact, he is rather known to seek it.
We next turned our attention to another Irish landlord, well known for his practical and manly resistance to the present camorra, but who has never done more than resist it. He is. connected with the city where the Company was to take root, and where perhaps thousands of the people would be employed.
On his being applied to, he answered that the very fact of his bolding property in the place, and the independent line he had taken in politics, would render it hopeless for him to confer the benefit of his capital or his business capacity, if he had it, on his fellow-citizens.
From my long experience of undertakings of a similar nature, I do not hesitate to say that if this one had been in New Zealand, India, the Cape, South America, or Mexico,. dozens of good men would have come forward to invest in it. I believe the first-mentioned gentleman would have presided
over it. And although the second one is not anxious for employment of such a kind, I do not doubt that had it been connected with his landed property in England, he would have worked to promote it by all means in his power. I leave these facts to speak for themselves, and make no comment on them.
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