Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Economic conditions; Land tenure -- Ireland
these expansions, which are strictly limited by physical impediments,
L2,000,000 or even twice that amount. It still remains obvious that,
even after expansions, good, bad, or indifferent, of the policy of 1903,
the total sum to be borrowed cannot exceed from L110,000,000 to
L113,000,000, as the outside figure that need be contemplated, provided
we refrain from the "economic insanity" of distributing eleven million
acres of permanent pasture among shopkeepers and "Gombeen" men. This
figure of L113,000,000, indeed, exceeds what may reasonably be expected.
The average of advances fell from L426 on the earliest agreements, to
L361 on all agreements to March 31, 1908, and to L287 on agreements
between that date and September 15, 1909. We may count on a continuation
of that fall until the average approaches L200, the price for Connaught,
where purchase has proceeded most slowly. But let the total stand at
L113,000,000. That sum neither warrants the breach of faith of which the
Government and the Nationalist party have been guilty, nor does it
present an insoluble problem to the resources of a united Exchequer.
L41,097,939 has already been borrowed in the market, and advanced, in
less than eight years.
The policy to which the leaders of the Unionist party stand pledged may
now be re-stated in the words which I was authorised to use by Mr.
Arthur Balfour and Lord Lansdowne after consultation with their
colleagues. Speaking on July 9, 1909, I said:--
"Our attitude is, that it is necessary to deal effectively with the
block of pending agreements, but in dealing with that block it is
not necessary to prejudice the interests either of the landlords or
tenants, who may come to terms on some future agreements. We think
that the spirit of the Act of 1903 must be observed in the case of
pending agreements, but it must not be departed from in the case of
future agreements."--Hansard, 1909, vol. vii. No. 93, cols. 1542,
1543.
Mr. Bonar Law confirms this pledge. He instructs me to say that the
Unionist party will resume the land policy of 1903, and pursue the same
objects by the best methods until all have been fully and expeditiously
achieved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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