A few 'Present Irish Questions' remain, on which I may offer passing remarks. Ireland is essentially a poor country; her middle class is comparatively very weak; her trade and manufactures are small; the greater part of the community is a Celtic race. It has long been contended by well-informed Irishmen that many undertakings, which, in Great Britain, have properly been left to private enterprise, ought, in Ireland, to be carried out by the State, as for centuries has been the case in France, a Celtic land, as was largely the case in Ireland under her extinct Parliament. This observation especially applies to the Irish railway system. As long ago as 1836, Thomas Drummond, the Under Secretary of well-known renown, strongly recommended that Irish railways should be laid out, managed, and controlled by the Government; but this was inconsistent with English ideas; the Irish railways were abandoned to private companies. The results have been very far from fortunate; many of the lines have been badly designed; the Irish railway fares are a great deal too high; too numerous boards of directors are a heavy charge; railway communication, in a word, in Ireland is of an inferior kind, and much too costly in a backward and poor country. Not indeed that the State has not made large advances to Irish railway companies, some of these on terms very unjust to ratepayers; but the system is faulty and ill-developed; a reform in this direction is greatly wanted.[193] As Drummond insisted, the State, even now, ought to buy up and direct the Irish railways; but this is only a part of what it ought to do in this province. The material condition of Ireland is not prosperous; her main river basins require drainage; her whole arterial drainage is in a bad state, and has suffered much from the legislation of 1881, and from the policy of so-called 'land purchase,' for ordinary Irish tenants will not keep it up, and their landlords cannot now be expected to do so; these works must be undertaken by the State, or assuredly they will not be undertaken at all. Mr. Arthur Balfour has done something in this direction by the encouragement of light railways in remote parts of Ireland, and by the foundation of the 'Congested Districts Board,' an institution that has had excellent results. But this is only the fringe of the subject; an enormous amount of work remains to be done; and this, in the circumstances of Ireland, can only be done by the Government.