24 APRIL 1926, Page 9

There was a sensible letter from an Irishman in the

Daily Mail recently a propos of the employment of a number Of Irishmen on electrical work in North Wales to which the TreaSury has made a grant of £1,000,000. When the matter was discussed at the Portinadoc Town Council it was pointed out that there were four hundred Welsh unemployed in the district. The writer of the letter appealed to British fairplay to reject the cry " No Irish need apply." There are in Great Britain some two million Southern Irish. Of these probably at least one hundred thousand are on the " dole." If racial discrimination were practised, as is sometimes advocated in Southern Ireland, the Irish Free State would be faced with the problem of finding work or maintenance for a hundred thousand of their expatriated countrymen. The Irishman referred to above asks, " What would happen if Great Britain retaliated when Southern Ireland boycotts British engineers in connexion with the Shannon and other schemes and employs foreign contractors on State-aided jobs ? " The truth is, as the Spectator- has always pointed out, that the fates of Ireland and Great Britain are indissolubly interwoven. - What has not always been realized in Ireland is that in the modern world you cannot live to " yourselves alone."

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