OCR Text |
Show Irish Emigration Diminishing. Throughg its honorary secretary. Miss Margaret Marga-ret O'Reilly, the Anti-Emigration Society of. Dublin Dub-lin calls our attention to the fact,- as shown by the statistics of emigration from Ireland- during the half-year ended June .".0 last, that the total of 48.'J70 emigrants is less than for the corresponding half-year half-year of Kiit: by . . Tlic diminution is at the rate of -Ji per .ecu I. and if the same rate is maintained for the .second half-year it will mean a total reduction of 9.550 in the year's emigration. This would bring the total annual figures down to Ji0,0o0, a point toA which they have never yet fallen since the returns be1 gan to be first collected.' fifty-four years ago. ; The falling off in emigration t his year has taken place month by month. Indeed, the-decrease has been continuous every month since August of last year, when the Anti-Emigration society's propaganda propa-ganda a (-lively commenced by the holding6'f a conference con-ference at tho Cork Exhibition. This is the more remarkable, as on account of the bad harvest last year an increase might naturally have been expected during tho winter and spring months, while the great reduction in the fares 1o America was calculated cal-culated to send up the May and June returns. Xot only has the whole volume of the emigration emigra-tion been so considerably reduced this year, but there has beeen also a falling off proportionately in the number to tho United States. It appears that of the total number of 1S,:J70 persons who left Ireland Ire-land in the past half-year, U,bs, or .SI" per cent, went to the United States, as compared with b4.J per cent last year and 83.8 per cent hi 1902.' It, may be mentioned that for the present the efforts of the society are almost entirely directed against emigration emi-gration to America, as that forms so large a proportion pro-portion of the whole. A statement of the number of passages of steerage emigrants prepaid in America Amer-ica is made by the society to .show "the ruinous part played by the prepaid passage ticket in the depopulation depopu-lation of the country." Of 12,784' emigrants to ihe t nited States during thje June quarter, no less than 5.204 or fully 40 per cent, sailed on passage tickets which were paid for in America. Taking into account ac-count the number of additional passages paid for at home with money remitted for the purpose from America, it is under the rk, tho 'secretary adds to say that more than one-half . oi' jhc Emigration from Ireland to the United States ireetl.y.-'due to the action of the Irish across the' Atlanlic. ' If the practice of sending home 'passage Hiatiey and i i L.mn uiiiiiiii mmiiwip.' liiii.. mi wiMw.Wf.,WMi...jcr1,w."Pllw'wl" ' ' -tfW" .m mm tickets from America could be put an end to emigration emi-gration from Inland would at once reach a normal level" ' 4 |