"We
cannot trust the Irish people to treat them justly." But the Irish land
question is now settled. The Irish landlords are either gone or going.
The Irish tenants are becoming peasant-proprietors. All that is
required now is a national authority to stand as trustee and guardian
of the Irish peasantry in paying their debt to the British people--or,
perhaps, even if the material condition of Ireland under Home Rule
should justify that course, to take over the debt. That is the new
"felt want," and the only way to supply it is to create a responsible
Irish self-governing Parliament.
Thus the two principal changes in Ireland since 1893 have not weakened,
but immensely strengthened, the case for Home Rule.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[12] See Appendix B.
[13] Appendix B (4), 31,000 in 1911, the lowest figure since the
Famine. There is a similar decline in the number of the Migratory
Labourers, from 15,000 in 1907 to 10,000 in 1910 (Cd. 6019).
[14] Appendix B (2) and (3). 2,000 families and nearly 3,000 inhabited
houses.
[15] The yield of Irish income tax is practically stationary at
L1,000,000, as against L30,000,000 yielded by Great Britain.
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