[44] In 1910-11, L2,408,000 (Treasury Return No. 220, 1911); plus L225,000 estimated increase owing to removal of Poor Law disqualification (Answer to Question in House of Commons, February 15, 1911).

[45] See p. 101.

[46] See particularly “Ireland in the New Century,” Sir Horace Plunkett; “Contemporary Ireland,” E. Paul-Dubois; “The New Ireland,” Sydney Brooks.

[47] “Report of the Recess Committee,” New Edition (Fisher Unwin).

[48] Colonel Saunderson, for example, the leader of the Irish Unionists in the Commons, refused publicly to be a member of a committee on which Mr. Redmond sat.  Mr. John Redmond himself wrote that he could not take a very sanguine view of the Conference, but that he was “unwilling to take the responsibility of declining to aid in any effort to promote useful legislation in Ireland.”

[49] Area under cultivation in 1875, 5,332,813 acres; in 1894, 4,931,011 acres (in 1899, 4,627,545 acres; in 1900, on a system of classification dividing arable land more accurately from pasture, there were only 3,100,397 acres arable, and in 1905 the figures were 2,999,082 acres) (Official Returns).  Population in 1841, 8,175,124; in 1851, 6,552,385; in 1861, 5,798,976; in 1871, 5,412,377; in 1881, 5,174,836; in 1891, 4,704,750; in 1892, 4,633,808; in 1893, 4,607,462; in 1894, 4,589,260; in 1895, 4,559,936 (in 1901, 4,458,775; in 1905, 4,391,543).—­Census Returns and Thoms’ Directory.

[50] Council of Agriculture:  68 members elected by County Councils; 84 appointed by the Department from the various provinces.  Total 102.

Board of Agriculture:  8 members elected by Council of Agriculture; 4 appointed by the Department.  Total 12.

Board of Technical Instruction:  10 members appointed by County Boroughs; 4 elected by Council of Agriculture; 6 appointed by the various Government Departments; 1 by a joint Committee of Dublin District Councils.  Total 21.

[51] I am not forgetting Scotland.  Her few local departments are theoretically, but not practically, at the mercy of English votes and influence.  Scotch opinion, broadly speaking, governs Scotch affairs.  Precisely to the extent to which it does not so govern them, is a demand for Home Rule likely to grow.

[52] Even the Recess Committee (and we cannot wonder) but dimly grasped the constitutional position when they laid stress on the necessity for an Agricultural Minister “directly responsible to Parliament.”  Logically, they should have first recommended the establishment of an Irish Parliament to which the Minister should be responsible.  To make him responsible to the House of Commons was absurd; and a Departmental Committee of 1907 has, in fact, recommended that the Vice-President should not have a seat in Parliament, but should remain in his proper place, Ireland.  Meanwhile, the original mistake has caused friction and controversy.  Soon after the Liberal Ministry took office in 1906,