Sir Ralph Cusack, Chairman of the Midland Great Western of
Ireland, made a discouraging speech to his shareholders on Thursday. He is a determined Tory and a very keen man, and he says all industries in the West of Ireland are in a de- clining condition. The receipts of his railway have diminished in goods traffic, passenger traffic, and cattle traffic, and he ex- pects still farther diminution in the latter. The millers' industry is also falling off, and the few local factories are closing.
We are sorry to believe that this view is, in the main, true, the universal fall in prices hitting the Irish farmers even more hardly than the English ones, because the Irish are working a more impoverished soil, and have no other occupation to which to betake themselves. There will be much distress in the West this winter,—a fact which greatly increases the responsibility of those who have elected to govern without a Crimes Act.
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