Manifestly in the first place the incompleted work of the nineteenth century, where the nation clearly asserted its desire, must be brought as speedily as possible to an end. That is to say, Land Purchase must be completed. This is necessary for several reasons, all of which vitally affect each part of the country, since nations are not tissues of separate interests, nor even an entanglement of separate interests, but co-ordinated wholes. It is economically necessary. Industrial centres, such as Belfast, depend for their enterprise on capital accumulated, not primarily from their own reserves, but from other sources. In Ireland those other sources are mainly derived from farmers’ deposits. The sooner, therefore, farmers can be relieved from the uneconomical drain on their industry known as rent the sooner will they be able to accumulate balances that will be available for industrial enterprise. Sound economy suggests that the main source of a nation’s wealth, its land, should be freed from the burden of rents, especially as these rents are usually spent to the advantage of other countries. It is also politically necessary. It is not at all likely that an agitation that convulsed the nineteenth century will die away with its work incompleted; and no nation can afford to let its path be encumbered by a continual agitation the justice of which has been admitted. The necessity in statesmanship follows closely upon this. The nation has clearly indicated that, just as the old State was built on the free possession of the land, so must the new State be built. It being the task of statesmanship to give expression to the desires of a nation while preserving the unity and balance of the whole, this particular desire must be satisfied, and built into the Polity, if the work of statesmanship is not to fall into ruin in its hands. Yet in order that Land Purchase should be completed the Nation must be financially free, without burdens placed upon it by any considerations outside its shores. Needless to say, Land Purchase under an Irish State will be a different matter from the same purchase as devised by foreign governments. The Nation will pay a single-minded attention to its own interests. Its good faith will be an essential part of those interests; but it will not be easily embarrassed by fictitious prices and delaying methods to inflate values. Nevertheless, much of the world’s wealth having somehow escaped in gas and shell-splinters, and Ireland being as the result of long oppression a poor nation, the completion of Land Purchase will require a nation absolutely unencumbered by any other demands on its wealth than the demand of its own problems.