FROM THE ARCHIVES:Wealthy people would only be dissuaded from taking their money abroad by making Ireland more interesting through the revival of Irish and better buildings, Minister for Finance Ernest Blythe told the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland as official figures showed emigration had doubled in the previous year. –
JOE JOYCE
Mr. Ernest Blythe, Minister for Finance, said that he thought that if they were to have prosperity in this country they would not have it merely by their industries or merely by the economic side of things.
In the old days this country had suffered a drain on its resources through the taking of income out of the country by the absentee landlord. They might have a similar export or emigration of wealth in the future.
If the people had not something beyond their business to tie them to the country, they would go out and take their wealth with them. At least, their children would.
They must have here conditions and institutions that will make the people think of their own country with love and pride. People would leave it if it was not interesting and go elsewhere if they could afford it.
Prosperity would not come entirely from having big factories. A great deal of the wealth made in the factories would go out if there was nothing in the country to keep the owners in it. It was here that the interests of architects could be connected with the interests of the country.
If they had men of talent and genius who would build houses, public buildings and churches that they might well be proud of, they would do something to keep wealth and people in the country. They would make the people think of their own country always with pride and love.
He often thought that this aspect of things was now forgotten, as it was by some people who attacked the policy of the Government in regard to the Irish language. He believed that without the restoration and preservation of the Irish language they would never have that intellectual and literary activity that was necessary to make this country as interesting for the people as it ought to be.
Just let people look for a moment at the state of affairs that they might have in Dublin were it an Irish-speaking city. Instead of Dublin having two newspapers, there would be five newspapers, because the people of Dublin read the ordinary outside newspapers extensively. Instead, they would not have the best men in journalism and letters intending to go abroad.
Instead of the Abbey Theatre, with its twenty artists and four or five dramatists, they would have four or five theatres, with one hundred to one hundred and fifty talented artists and dramatists.
He was one of the people who supported the language movement for economic reasons : he thought it was the only thing that would give their small country an incentive, and the only thing that would prevent it being beggared by the emigration of wealth and talent from it.