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AN GAOḊAL.
COLONIZATION.
We are pleased to be able to announce that since
our last issue the colonization scheme of which
we recommended the formation has since assumed
a definite shape by the organization of
THE CELTIC HOMESTEAD COMPANY,
with a capital of $2,500,000. As we anticipated,
well-known, substantial, trustworthy Irishmen
have taken the matter in hand, so that after
a very short time the Company will be in full
working order. It is the grandest project ever
conceived to better the condition of the Irish in
this country.
The Company proposes to place any honest man
willing to work on a 100 acre farm of good land,
build him a house, sink him a well, provide him
with farming implements, &c. to enable him to
raise his first crop, give him the land at $5 an acre,
100 acres for $500, on very easy installments, and
after paying these $500 the land is his own for
ever. This is the greatest chance ever offered to
labor. Now, two fair or average crops would pay
the cost of the farm and its attachments, about the
average yearly rent of a similar farm in the Old
Country,
But some may say that it would take a long
time to pay up the price of the farm. Suppose it
took ten years to pay it up, how many a man has
worked hard in these cities for the last fifteen
years who cannot today pay the second month's
rent in advance were it required of him? If he
worked on the farm half the time, he would have
secured a home for himself for ever.
There can be no cavilling about the benefits
here offered. As soon as the settler raises his first
crop he has his food in the land, his potatoes, his
corn, his beans and peas. his fruit, his fowl etc, so
that he can want for nothing if it be not his own
fault, We know whereof we speak because we
were raised in the farming business, and, from
that experience we know that there is no more
independent citizen, in any country, than the
farmer who has a good farm of land. In the Old
Country, a farmer who held a 100 acre farm of
good and at a £ an acre yearly, was a snug, inde¬
pendent man. But for that £ which he pays
yearly he gets an acre here for ever. Surely when
he can be snug and comfortable after paying
yearly a $100, or $500, for his farm in the Old
Country, it is reasonable to suppose that, by
making the same exertion, he could be doubly
comfortable here when he will have it for nothing
after he pays one year's Old Country rent.
It has been said that up to this time the lot of
the Irishman has been cast among "The hewers
of wood and drawers of water" — and this has been
so. Now it is time for him to make a little
change, and if Irishmen be true to each other
they can become, with very little exertion, not only
independent, but the bone and sinew of the
land, — "The country's pride."
Cooperation is all that is necessary to accom¬
plish this to be desired end.
We have rich Irishmen in this country who are
daily looking after schemes to profitably invest
their capital. Now, all the spare capital among
Irishmen can be profitably invested in the coloni¬
zation of the millions of acres of fine land lying
idle in the States with their poorer countrymen.
Buying land at $2 or $8 an acre in large quan¬
tities and selling it to their poor countrymen on
terms which would enable them in a short time
to become their own landlords, and at the same
time secure a profitable investment for themselves,
is an undertaking in which every Irishman, having
the means, should with alacrity take part.
As observed in our last article on this subject,
there is no risk in this matter, but millions of
money to all concerned, because the land — the
foundation and security of the wealth of the nation,
is their guaranty.
Now, every Irishman blest by Providence with
a reasonable share of the goods of this world
should desire the well being of his less fortunate
countrymen, aye, and of humanity at large. What
an eye-sore to the well-to-do Irishman must be the
thousands of the starving poor of his nation whom
he meets daily in our large cities. Irishmen, re¬
move this eyesore by the agency which we have
laid before you. Settle them on our waste lands
in colonies in such numbers as will enable them
to commune with, and be company for, each other.
It will take a large capital to do this thoroughly,
but this capital will make a tenfold return both in
cash and in the consciousness that the capitalist has
done that which Wisdom expected of wealth when
It propounded the interrogatory:
Ṫug mé maoin díḃ, agus creud a
rinne siḃ leis?
"I gave ye wealth, and what did ye do with it"?
We urge Irish-American capitalists thus because
we see in this Colonization scheme a chance for
profitable investment. There will be no lack of
funds for when the shrewd Yankee sees a hole o¬
pen where by throwing in a $1000 he can pull out
$2000, he will not leave it open very long.
The most ominous epoch in the history of Ire¬
land's forced and unfortunate connection with
England is now at hand. The united pressure of
the Irish people in all lands will have its due
weight in the determination of the future weal
or woe of Ireland. Hence, any man, or party of
men, lending themselves to the traitorous policy
of creating disunion in the ranks of Irishmen are
worse enemies to Ireland than the noted informer
Carey or the Northern Orangemen. If any party
has betrayed the confidence placed in him, it is not
in crossing the river he should be taxed with it;
English gold, it seems, is being freely used in
certain quarters.
