This solution of the problem of agricultural labor will be forced on us for many reasons. The economic effects of the great European War, the burden of debt piled on the participating nations, will make Ministers shun schemes of reform involving a large use of national credit, or which would increase the sum of national obligations. Land purchase on the old term I believe cannot be continued. Yet we will demand the intensive cultivation of the national estate, and increased production of wealth, especially of food-stuffs. The large area of agricultural land laid down for pasture is not so productive as tilled land, does not sustain so large a population, and there will be more reasons in the future than in the past for changing the character of farming in these areas. The policy of collective farming offers a solution, and whatever Government is in power should facilitate the settlement of men in cooperative colonies and provide expert instructors as managers for the first year or two if necessary. Such a policy would not be so expensive as land purchase, and with fair rent fixed, hundreds of thousands of people could be planted comfortably on the land in Ireland and produce more wealth from it than could ever be produced from grazing lands, and agricultural workers and the sons of farmers who now emigrate could become economically independent. I hope, also, that farmers, becoming more brotherly as their own enterprises flourish, will welcome laborers into their co-operative stores, credit banks, poultry and bee-keeping societies, and allow them the benefits of cheap purchase, cheap credit, and of efficient marketing of whatever the laborer may produce on his allotment. The growth of national conscience and the spirit of human brotherhood, and a feeling of shame that any should be poor and neglected in the national household, will be needed to bring the rural laborer into the circle of national life, and make him a willing worker in the general scheme. If farmers will not, on their part, advance towards their laborers and bring them into the co-operative community, then labor will be organized outside their community and will be hostile, and will be always brooding and scheming to strike a blow when the farmer can least bear it,--when the ground must be tilled or the harvest gathered. And this, if peace cannot be made, will result in a still greater decline of tillage and the continued flight of the rural laborers, and the increase of the area in grass, and the impoverishing of human life and national well-being.