• -- Doubtless there were eggs and butter from the
Irish Free State, although they, escaped my attention ; but then perhaps the Irish farmer who makes a living by selling his products to the British market is not sufficiently interested in the British Commonwealth to care about an Empire shopping week ! For the manu- facture of tobacco by British firms in Dublin has, during the past fortnight, been severely criticized by some Irish super-patriots as one more proof of Ireland's subjugation to the " foreigner." What would happen, I wonder, if the British 'paterfamilias adopted the slogan, " No foreign-grown food on my breakfast table—no Irish bacon, butter or beef for me " ? Is it not con- ceivable that we should soon be reading special resolutions of the Dail concerning another injustice to Ireland ? If my fellow-countrymen across the Channel would only realize that trade is barter, and that every hundred pounds' worth of imports from Great Britain means broadly a hundred pounds' worth of Irish produce exported, how much better it would be for all con- ' cerned ! The sooner Southern Ireland stops talking about " foreign " capital, and gets all the money she can from Threadneedle Street or elsewhere for her development, the better. The growing interdependence of world trade is a doctrine which has not yet pene- trated into the minds of some Irishmen ; to them the ideal to be aimed at would appear still to be trade with " ourselves alone."
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