All this goes towards the support of the various industries of the place. That the working classes of Belfast are thrifty and frugal may be inferred from the fact that at the end of 1882 they held deposits in the Savings Bank to the amount of 230,289L., besides 158,064L. in the Post Office Savings Banks.Nearly all the better class working people of the town live in separate dwellings, either rented or their own property. There are ten Building Societies in Belfast, in which industrious people may store their earnings, and in course of time either buy or build their own houses.
The example of energetic, active men always spreads. Belfast contains two other shipbuilding yards, both the outcome of Harland and Wolff's enterprise; those of Messrs. Macilwaine and Lewis, employing about four hundred men, and of Messrs. Workman and Clarke, employing about a thousand. The heads of both these firms were trained in the parent shipbuilding works of Belfast.
There is do feeling of rivalry between the firms, but all work together for the good of the town.
In Plutarch's Lives, we are told that Themistocles said on one occasion, "'Tis true that I have never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute, but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness." So might it be said of Harland and Wolff. They have given Belfast not only a potency for good, but a world-wide reputation. Their energies overflow.
Mr. Harland is the active and ever-prudent Chairman of the most important of the local boards, the Harbour Trust of Belfast, and exerts himself to promote the extension of the harbour facilities of the port as if the benefits were to be exclusively his own;while Mr. Wolff is the Chairman of one of the latest born industries of the place, the Belfast Rope-work Company, which already gives employment to over 600 persons.
This last-mentioned industry is only about six years old. The works occupy over seven acres of ground, more than six acres of which are under roofing. Although the whole of the raw material is imported from abroad from Russia, the Philippine Islands, New Zealand, and Central America--it is exported again in a manufactured state to all parts of the world.
Such is the contagion of example, and such the ever-branching industries with which men of enterprise and industry can enrich and bless their country. The following brief memoir of the career of Mr. Harland has been furnished at my solicitation; and I think that it will be found full of interest as well as instruction.
Footnotes for Chapter X.
Report in the Cork Examiner, 5th July, 1883.
In 1883, as compared with 1882, there was a decrease of 58,022 acres in the land devoted to the growth of wheat; there was a total decrease of 114,871 acres in the land under tillage.--Agricultural Statistics, Ireland, 1883. Parliamentary Return, c. 3768.
Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom, 1883.
The particulars are these: deposits in Irish Post Office Savings Banks, 31st December, 1882, 1,925,440; to the credit of depositors and Government stock, 125,000L.; together, 2,050,440L.
The increase of deposits over those made in the preceding year, were: in Dublin, 31,321L.; in Antrim, 23,328L.; in Tyrone, 21,315L.; in Cork, 17,034L.; and in Down, 10,382L.
The only thriving manufacture now in Dublin is that of intoxicating drinks--beer, porter, stout, and whisky. Brewing and distilling do not require skilled labour, so that strikes do not affect them.
Times, 11th June, 1883.
The valuation of the county of Aberdeen (exclusive of the city) was recently 866,816L., whereas the value of the herrings (748,726 barrels) caught round the coast (at 25s. the barrel) was 935,907L., thereby exceeding the estimated annual rental of the county by 69,091L. The Scotch fishermen catch over a million barrels of herrings annually, representing a value of about a million and a-half sterling.
A recent number of Land and Water supplies the following information as to the fishing at Kinsale:-- "The takes of fish have been so enormous and unprecedented that buyers can scarcely be found, even when, as now, mackerel are selling at one shilling per six score. Piles of magnificent fish lie rotting in the sun.
The sides of Kinsale Harbour are strewn with them, and frequently, when they have become a little 'touched,' whole boat-loads are thrown overboard into the water. This great waste is to be attributed to scarcity of hands to salt the fish and want of packing-boxes. Some of the boats are said to have made as much as 500L. this season. The local fishing company are making active preparations for the approaching herring fishery, and it is anticipated that Kinsale may become one of the centres of this description of fishing."Statistical Journal for March 1848. Paper by Richard Valpy on "The Resources of the Irish Sea Fisheries," pp. 55-72.
HALL, Retrospect of a Long Life, ii. 324.
