FROM THE ARCHIVES:WB YEATS struck a contemporary note about the country's present predicament when addressing an election rally in Rathmines Town Hall in support of Major Bryan Cooper, a former unionist MP who was elected as an Independent TD in the post-Civil War general election. – JOE JOYCE
SENATOR W. B. Yeats said that he came there to recommend the electors in the Rathmines area to return Major Bryan Cooper to the Dáil. When he was a child in Sligo, Major Cooper’s grandfather was the most prominent man in the county, respected by everybody for his integrity and ability. n ancestor of Major Cooper’s, Joshua Cooper, was elected to what became Grattan’s Parliament. He sat in it until the Act of Union. He could not be bribed; he refused a peerage, and he voted against the Union.
The old Ireland was dead – that which had its own idealism, principles and sentiment, which produced some good oratory and much self-sacrifice. He knew its virtues and its faults, and he was glad it had passed away.
A new Ireland was beginning, with a new idealism – of power, patience, and economy. Those on that platform could speak more frankly of the financial situation of the country than the Government. The Government had a great responsibility; if they spoke out plainly they might, perhaps, injure the national credit. Major Cooper had told them of the heavy deficit of something like £20,000,000, £10,000,000 of which was, he thought, spent on the Army.
Every country had at one time or other to meet exceptional expenditure, and all met that burden by borrowing, and it was right that they should. £10,000,000 of the deficit would largely be paid in respect of compensation for destruction.
What was far more serious was recurring expenditure. The Army would always cost £2,000,000 or £3,000,000. That was what the Army of Canada cost, and he thought that it would be quite enough for this country He believed that future generations would be engaged in a fight, just as one had been waged by generations that were gone.
The struggle of future generations would be to win not political but financial independence. A man might have all the political independence that he ever dreamt of and yet have no freedom if he had an immense overdraft at the bank. (Applause.)
They would have to teach their young men to labour, to be patient, and to be economical if they were to reduce expenditure and to increase income. They had to make the nation overflowing with activity, to make it rich and successful, and its burdens light.
They had to restore credit, to advance it beyond where it was, and he believed that would be accomplished. He was satisfied it would be done when he looked back on Ireland’s past, when he thought of the innumerable leaders of men Ireland produced. (Applause.) It had produced agile minds and strong wills, and he believed that it would grasp the opportunity of new patience and sacrifice – the ideal of the new Ireland. (Applause.)
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