This great Celtic race is one of the most remarkable that has appeared in history.  Whether it belongs to that extensive Indo-European family of nations, which, in ages before the dawn of history, took up a line of march in two columns from Lower India, and moving westward by both a northern and a southward route, finally diffused itself over Western Asia, Northern Africa, and the greater part of Europe; or whether, as others suppose, the Celtic race belongs to a still older stock, and was itself driven down upon the south and into the west of Europe by the overwhelming force of the Indo-Europeans, is a question which we have no time at present to discuss.  However it may be decided, it would seem that for the first time, as far as we are acquainted with the fortunes of this interesting race, they have found themselves in a really prosperous condition, in this country.  Driven from the soil in the west of Europe, to which their forefathers clang for two thousand years, they have at length, and for the first time in their entire history, found a real home in a land of strangers.  Having been told, in the frightful language of political economy, that at the daily table which Nature spreads for the human family there is no cover laid for them in Ireland, they have crossed the ocean to find occupation, shelter, and bread, on a foreign but friendly soil.

This “Celtic Exodus,” as it has been aptly called, is to all the parties immediately connected with it one of the most important events of the day.  To the emigrants themselves it may be regarded as a passing from death to life.  It will benefit Ireland by reducing a surplus population, and restoring a sounder and juster relation of capital and labor.  It will benefit the laboring classes in England, where wages have been kept down to the starvation-point by the struggle between native population and the inhabitants of the sister island, for that employment and food, of which there is not enough for both.  This benefit will extend from England to ourselves, and will lessen the pressure of that competition which our labor is obliged to sustain, with the ill-paid labor of Europe.  In addition to all this, the constant influx into America of stout and efficient hands supplies the greatest want in a new country, which is that of labor, gives value to land, and facilitates the execution of every species of private enterprise and public work.

I am not insensible to the temporary inconveniences which are to be set off against these advantages, on both sides of the water.  Much suffering attends the emigrant, there, on his passage, and after his arrival.  It is possible that the value of our native labor may have been depressed by too sudden and extensive a supply from abroad; and it is certain that our asylums and alms-houses are crowded with foreign inmates, and the resources of public and private benevolence have been heavily drawn upon.  These are considerable evils, but they have perhaps been exaggerated.