Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Economic conditions; Land tenure -- Ireland
The prospects of Irish agriculture under the Union include a return to
the land policy of 1903, with its fair hopes of reconciliation between
classes and creeds, and its accomplished result of abounding prosperity.
What are the prospects of Irish agriculture under Home Rule? Of what
Home Rule may mean in this, as in other respects, we have been told so
little that we are driven to consider its effect on Irish agriculture in
the light of two contingencies. It may be that the extremists, with whom
Mr. Dillon invariably ranges himself, as a preliminary to dragging Mr.
Redmond after him, will have their way. In that case, Ireland will exact
complete fiscal autonomy from a Government which invariably surrenders
to Mr. Dillon's puppet. Should this occur, land purchase will cease
abruptly in the absence of credit for borrowing the sums it requires.
Take the other alternative, hazily outlined by Mr. Winston Churchill at
Belfast. We glean from his pronouncement that the Government intend--if
they can--to refuse fiscal autonomy, and to preserve control over land
purchase. Can it be expected that this attempt, even if it succeeds,
will produce better results for land purchase than the pitiable failure
of the Act of 1909? Is it not certain that less money will be raised in
England, for Ireland, after Home Rule? And if raised in driblets, on
what will it be spent? Obviously, not on the policy of 1903, but on the
policy substituted by Mr. Dillon in 1909. It will be spent on expelling
landlords and graziers to make room for subscribers to the propaganda of
extremists. We must judge of what will happen to agriculture after Home
Rule by what has happened since the Treaty of 1903 was repudiated. Nor
must we forget that Mr. Dillon's destructive activity has ranged beyond
land purchase. That policy could have achieved little but for the
untiring and generous patriotism of Sir Horace Plunkett. He established
the Department of Agriculture and converted his countrymen to
co-operation, in the absence of which no system of small ownership can
succeed. He, too, based his efforts on a conference--the Recess
Committee. How has he been met? Mr. Redmond, a member of that Committee,
as later of the Land Conference, has, here again, succumbed to Mr.
Dillon, who seeks to defeat co-operation between farmers, in the
interests of his disciples; whilst Mr. Russell, with the hectic zeal of
a pervert, has refused Ireland's share of the new Development Grant in
order to spite Sir Horace Plunkett.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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