The leaders of the Nationalist party are, of course, entitled to hold that, in existing political conditions, any non-political movement towards national advancement, which in its nature cannot be linked, as the land question was linked, to the Home Rule movement constitutes an unwarrantable sacrifice of ends to means. And so holding, they are further entitled to subject any proposal to elevate popular thought, or to direct popular activities, to a strict censorship as to its remote as well as to its immediate effect upon the electorate. I know, too, that it is held by some thinking Nationalists who take no active part in politics that the politicians are justified on tactical grounds in this exclusive pursuit of their political aims, and in the methods by which they pursue them. They consider the present system of government too radically wrong to mend, and they can undoubtedly point to agrarian legislation as evidence of the effectiveness of the means they employ to gain their end. This view of things has sunk very deep into the Irish mind. The policy of 'giving trouble' to the Government is looked upon as the one road to reform and is believed in so fervently that, except for religion, which sometimes conflicts with it, there is scarcely any capacity left for belief in anything else. I am far from denying that the past offers much justification for the belief that nothing can be gained by Ireland from England except through violent agitation. Until recently, I admit, Ireland's opportunity had to wait for England's difficulty. But, as practised in the present day, I believe this doctrine to be mischievous and false. For one thing, there is a new England to deal with. The England which, certainly not in deference to violent agitation, established the Congested Districts Board, gave Local Government to Ireland, and accepted the recommendations of the Recess Committee for far-reaching administrative changes, as well as those of the Land Conference which involved great financial concessions, is not the England of fifty years ago, still less the England of the eighteenth century. Moreover, in riveting the mind of the country on what is to be obtained from England, this doctrine of 'giving trouble,' the whole gospel of the agitator, has blinded the Irish people to the many things which Ireland can do for herself. Whatever may be said of what is called 'agitation' in Ireland as an engine for extorting legislation from the Imperial Parliament, it is unquestionably bad for the much greater end of building up Irish character and developing Irish industry and commerce. 'Agitation,' as Thomas Davis said, 'is one means of redress, but it leads to much disorganisation, great unhappiness, wounds upon the soul of a country which sometimes are worse than the thinning of a people by war.'[14] If Irish politicians had at all realised this truth, it is difficult to believe that the popular movement of the last quarter