Who can
tell whether some touch of remorse did not enter into the heart of the
man who up to that time had been the greatest of Irish coercionists
since Castlereagh, when he saw with his own eyes the sorry plight of
the poorest people in Europe--the people who, in the opinion of General
Gordon, were, as a result of a century of British civilisation, more
destitute and miserable than the savages of Central Africa?
Mr. Balfour, at any rate, relented from his policy of more oppression.
He even entered upon the first small beginnings of a policy of
restoration.
It was a very small beginning--that first Congested Board--and a
Commission that reported on its work nearly twenty years after[28]
decided that the Board had neither powers nor cash sufficient for its
work. The Liberal Government of 1906-10 frankly accepted the opinion of
the Commission, and gave the Board both new powers and new funds in the
Irish Land Act of 1909. Under that Act the Congested Board is endowed
with L250,000 a year, and has authority over half the area and a third
of the population of Ireland.[29] Over these great regions[30] this
authority now possesses extensive powers of purchase, rehousing,
replanting, creation of fisheries, provision of seed and
stocks--powers, in short, extending to the complete restoration, by
compulsion if necessary, of a whole community.
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