sustained.  Much of Irish industrial talent was lost irrevocably before the old industrial restrictions were removed.  There remained the land, an immense source of potential wealth, if properly developed under a rational system of agrarian tenure.  For the best part of a century after the Union, the agrarian tenure, dating from the first genuine colonization of Ireland, when the land was confiscated wholesale and the peasantry enslaved, was maintained by force of arms.  Thirty years ago (if we date from the Land Act of 1881) we began to change this tenure into another equally defective, though far more favourable to the tenant.  A little later, but only eight years ago, on a thorough and systematic scale, we began the parallel policy of Land Purchase.  Even now, having transferred half the land to peasant ownership, and placed the other half under judicial rents, many of our statesmen are unwilling to give Ireland the control of its own affairs.  On the contrary, step by step with the economic enfranchisement of the farmers, has gone the policy of destroying their personal and political independence, and forcing them to look outside their own country for financial aid, by spending money upon Ireland which Irishmen have no direct responsibility for raising.  What a travesty of statesmanship!  First, having assisted the farmer to buy his own land, to clap him on the back with “Now, my fine fellow, you are a free man.”  In the same breath to tell him that he is not fit to have a direct voice in the management of his own country’s affairs, and to try and reconcile him to this insult by sapping that very independence of character which the acquirement of a freehold has begun to instil in him.

I described in Chapter IX. how a number of patriotic Irishmen, working both at industrial and agricultural development, have striven to counteract this fatal tendency, and to persuade their countrymen to rely on themselves alone.  But I venture to repeat what I said then, that without the bracing discipline of Home Rule, and, above all, of the financial Home Rule, these efforts are doomed to comparative failure.

It is absolutely necessary to produce an equilibrium between revenue and expenditure in Ireland, as in every other country in the world.  Whatever the temporary strain upon Ireland, whatever the sacrifices involved, the thing must be done, and done now or never.  Great Britain’s interest is something, but it is trivial beside that of Ireland.  The situation is growing worse, not better, and Irishmen should unite to insist that the whole system should stop.

II.

IRISH EXPENDITURE.

Let us look a little more closely at Irish expenditure, as disclosed in the Treasury returns.

For purposes of comparison, I set out first the main heads of Civil Expenditure for England, Scotland, and Ireland in the year 1910-11:[119]

Population.  England, Scotland, Ireland,
36,075,269. 4,759,521. 4,381,951.