Is Ireland poor? I decided to base my answer to that question on personal
investigation. I dressed myself as a working girl--it is to the working
class that seven-eighths of the Irish people belong--and in a week in the
slums of Dublin I found that lack of employment is continually driving the
people to migration, low-wage slavery, or acceptance of charity.

At the woman's employment bureau of the ministry of munitions, I discovered
that 50,000 Irish boys and girls are annually sent to the English harvests,
and that during the war there were 80,000 placements in the English
munition factories.

"But I don't want to leave home," I heard a little ex-fusemaker say as we
stood in queues at the chicken-wire hatch in the big bare room turned over
by the ministry of munitions for the replacement of women who had worked on
army supplies. Her voice trembled with the uncertainty of one who knew she
could not dictate.

"Then you've got to be a servant," said the direct young woman at the
hatch. "There's nothing left in Ireland but domestic jobs."

"Isn't--you told me there might be something in Belfast?"

"Linen mills are on part time now--no chance. There's only one place for
good jobs now--that's across the channel."

The little girl bit her lip. She shook her head and went out the rear exit
provided for ex-war workers. Together we splashed into the broken-bricked
alley that was sloppy with melting spring sleet.

"Maybe she doesn't know everything," said the little girl, fingering a