As To
Ireland, We May Rejoice To Say That There Is Less Of It Now Than
There Was Twenty Years Since.
Things are mending there.
But though
such excuses may be truly made - although an Englishman, when he sees
this squalor and poverty on the quays at Queenstown, consoles
himself with reflecting that the evil has been unavoidable, but will
perhaps soon be avoided - nevertheless he cannot but remember that
there is no such squalor and no such poverty in the land from which
he has returned. I claim no credit for the new country. I impute
no blame to the old country. But there is the fact. The Irishman
when he expatriates himself to one of those American States loses
much of that affectionate, confiding, master-worshiping nature which
makes him so good a fellow when at home. But he becomes more of a
man. He assumes a dignity which he never has known before. He
learns to regard his labor as his own property. That which he earns
he takes without thanks, but he desires to take no more than he
earns. To me personally, he has, perhaps, become less pleasant than
he was; - but to himself! It seems to me that such a man must feel
himself half a god, if he has the power of comparing what he is with
what he was.
It is right that all this should be acknowledged by us. When we
speak of America and of her institutions, we should remember that
she has given to our increasing population rights and privileges
which we could not give - which as an old country we probably can
never give. That self-asserting, obtrusive independence which so
often wounds us is, if viewed aright, but an outward sign of those
good things which a new country has produced for its people. Men
and women do not beg in the States; they do not offend you with
tattered rags; they do not complain to heaven of starvation; they do
not crouch to the ground for half-pence. If poor, they are not
abject in their poverty. They read and write. They walk like human
beings made in God's form. They know that they are men and women,
owing it to themselves and to the world that they should earn their
bread by their labor, but feeling that when earned it is their own.
If this be so, if it be acknowledged that it is so, should not such
knowledge in itself be sufficient testimony of the success of the
country and of her institutions?
END OF VOL. II.
End of North America, V. II by Anthony Trollope
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