FROM THE ARCHIVES:A visit by the admiral of the fleet to Cork Harbour in 1866 prompted this editorial which cited an unusual reason for the delays in building a new dock – a shortage of criminals in Cork. – JOE JOYCE
THE LORDS of the Admiralty having visited the Royal harbours and dockyards of England, entered Cork Harbour on Thursday in the midst of a storm. They had around their vessel the finest sheet of water, enclosed by natural defences, in the United Kingdom.
If they sounded the depth close in shore they would have found that the Warrior could float at less than a stone’s thrown from the shore. It was only necessary to glance round the harbour to be satisfied that all existing navies could lie at anchor safely there.
If case of war breaking out in Europe between maritime powers, Cork Harbour, of necessity, should become one of the principal stations of her Majesty’s fleets. Yet should a vessel be injured in an engagement or by stress of weather, or by any of those casualties which befall those who “brave the dangers of the main”, there is no dockyard in which they could be repaired; no furnaces or forges where the ironclads could be placed in fighting order. A vessel injured should remain in harbour at the risk of becoming a total loss, until she could be towed round the whole coast of Ireland and carried into an English dockyard. Sir John Pakington knew that a small sum had been carried in spite of opposition, for the construction of a naval dockyard at Cork. He looked round for it. Eighteen months have elapsed since the works were nominally commenced. When he inquired for the dock he was shown a heap of stones rough from the quarry. Nothing more has been done than quarrying.
A difficulty had arisen, it appears, from the diminution of crime in Ireland. The late government intended the works to be executed by convict labour, in order to save expense, but convict labour is scarce, and every day becoming more so. There were but few convicts employed at the works, because crime has diminished, and if the works are to be completed in any reasonable time, recourse must be had to free labour.
Sir John Pakington seems to have been impressed by some of the speakers who addressed him, that convict labour could be obtained in sufficient, or nearly sufficient, quantity in Dublin. This we believe to be a mistake. Many of the convicts at Mountjoy are tradesmen-tailors, tin platers, carpenters, c. At Smithfield, also, all, with the exception of eight or nine, are tradesmen; the convicts at Lusk are agricultural labourers. We believe that if the masons, stone cutters, or able-bodied men capable of taking part in the works of the Cork dockyard were gathered from the Dublin Convict Prisons, they would not reckon on more than one hundred at the most.
But really this is not a question to be decided by a reference to the cheapness of convict labour. A dockyard is needed at Cork now, and no time should be lost in completing it.
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