of the Bill. The Congested Districts Board has in the matter of land purchase proved a comparative failure. They have done some good work in developing fisheries, improving stock, fostering small industries and in technical education, and all that business is to be transferred to the Board of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. The Estates Commissioners have bought land more readily and cheaper than the Congested Districts Board, and the land purchase business of the Board might with advantage be transferred to them. great part of the country two departments with their separate establishments will be working side by side, perhaps in harmony, perhaps in discord, at precisely the same operation-land purchase. The Estates Commissioners who understand the business are restricted in their area, and in many counties will be unable to act save by permission of the Congested Districts Board. The area of the Congested Districts Board, who do not understand the business, is enlarged, and they are invested with extraordinary powers. Three bodies are doing the work of two, and Ireland is saddled with great and unnecessary expense. 6 To sum up the situation. The Land Act of 1903 was a great measure conceived in an Imperial spirit designed to effect a revolution in land tenure in Ireland necessary for the well-being, not only of Ireland but of Great Britain and the whole Empire. It has proved successful beyond the dreams of the most sanguine; but its success has proved its undoing. The Treasury are unable to find money to finance the Act, without incurring a loss which the Government decline to sanction. The finance of the Act of 1903 has been severely criticised. Considering that 2 per cent. Consols stood at 931 when the Act was passed, Mr. Wyndham was justified in assuming that sufficient money could be raised by the issue of stock bearing 23 per cent. interest. He was wrong, but if virile agitation' had not been preached in Ireland, and if sounder financial methods had been adopted by the Treasury, losses on flotation would have been comparatively small. That matter cannot be investigated in this article, but two facts are patent. Disorder has depressed Irish land stock, and the Treasury have not acted as prudent borrowers. They have neglected favourable opportunities of obtaining comparatively large sums, sums in excess of their immediate requirements, and have been forced to borrow when opportunities were unfavourable. Why his Majesty's Government have shot a new Land Act upon the country at a period that makes it impossible that it can be passed or even discussed this Session, is past all finding out. They had all the material before them, and might have put forward their proposals at least nine months ago. It would have cost a mere trifle to carry on the Act of 1903, while Irishmen had an opportunity of calmly considering a matter of such vast importance to their country. It will cost a mere trifle to carry on the Act now for a short time, and that is probably the best solution of the difficulty before us. Finality is the one thing necessary if Ireland is to be saved from perpetual turmoil. Finality was reached by the Conference and the Act of 1903. No one will deny that the whole great peaceful revolution would be accomplished under that Act in five or six years' time if funds could be provided; and there is no reason why under the same favourable circumstances the settlement of the congested districts question should not have proceeded pari passu with it. It is all a question of money. True statesmanship would recognise the wisdom of charging the votes with the annual sum necessary to provide excess stock. With the payment to Ireland of arrears due to the development grant, and with better methods of finance, the annual sum required could not be over a quarter of a million for a limited number of years; and it would be a gradually declining charge. A peaceful Ireland would not be dear at the price. It seems a pity to re-open a closed question, to offer encouragement to the forces of disorder, to run the risk of throwing Ireland off the peaceful path of reform and material development which the great majority of her people desire to tread, and all for the sake of a sum that represents less than one halfpenny in the pound on the amounts annually voted by Parliament. DUNRAVEN. The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake to return unaccepted MSS. INDEX TO VOL. LXIV The titles of articles are printed in italics ABB BRA Balkan crisis, The, and the European Balkans, The Military Situation in Balloons and airships, their use in Barbizon school of painting, Some Barker (J. Ellis), The Triple Entente Bashford (J. L.), The Berlin Crisis, Basque celebrations of the Month of Bastille, The, 294–299 Battleship building, foreign, 885-907 British and Charlotte-Jeanne: Battleships for Brazil, 207-214 Bellew (Mrs.), a forgotten Episode of the French Bengal, Sedition in, 16-25, 951-954 Berlin Revisited by a British Tourist. Bible, The, and the Church, 955-975 811-823 Blake (Sir Henry), The Rule of the Boer government and treatment of Brazil and the new Dreadnoughts, BRI British East Africa, its possibilities, British men and women, are they British monarchs, London statues of, British Trade and Canadian Pre- EUR Clergy, The Supply of, for the Church Coke as the Father of Norfolk Agri- Colonial social conditions and London Bulgaria, Turkey, and the Treaty of Constitutional government for the Berlin, 719-723 Bulgarian army, The, 736-738 Bülow, Prince: an Appreciation, 684-693 Burnand (Sir Francis C.), Un Peu de Church of England, 38-43, 258-265 Cox (Sir Edmund C.), Danger in Cromer (Lord) and the Khedive, 85– II. Autonomy in the Anglican DAMNATORY clauses of the Atha- Churches, 258-265 CANADA (French) and the Quebec Canadian Preference, The Value of, Cardigan (Earl of), The Cavalry of the Territorial Army, 864-872 Cavalry of the Territorial Army, Censored by the State, How we came Censorship of Fiction, The, 479-487 Chancellor (E. Beresford), The Royal Chaos, The, of London Traffic, 622– Charlotte-Jeanne: a forgotten Epi- Chase of the Wild Red Deer, The, on Child-training in foundling homes and China, The late Empress Dowager of, Church of England, The Supply of Church Reform, The Present Stage Churchill (Mr. Winston) and Indians Churchmen and the Education com- creed, 38-47 Dante and Shakespeare, The, 603–621 Dicey (Edward), The Khedive of Egypt, 85-100; A Novel Phase of Dimnet (Abbé Ernest), The Neo- Dreadnoughts for Sale or Hire, 207– Dunraven (Earl of), The New Irish AGLESTON (A. J.), Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the Spy, 300-310 Eastern Question, The, and the Turkish Education, The Board of, Health Educational Surrender, An, 984–940 Elliot (Gertrude), Turkey in 1876: a Empire, The, and Anthropology, Empress Dowager, The Rule of the, England, Has she wronged Ireland? Episcopal Churches (Anglican), Auto- -an Independent View, 724-729 EUR European ententes and alliances, 1-17 FAMINES, rainfall, and destruction Ffrench (Rev. G. E.), The Supply of Fiction, The Censorship of, 479-487 The Unrest of Insecurity, 162–172 Forest conservancy in India, 147-161 France, The Neo-Royalist Movement in, 287-293 Franco-British Exhibition, Art at Free Trade, A Lesson on the Effects 239 French pioneers in Canada, 108-121 French translation of Pickwick, 311- Fuller (Sir Bampfylde), The Vision Splendid' of Indian Youth, 18-25 GERMAN Chancellor, The, Prince Bülow, 684-693 German parties and the 'Kaiser German preparation for war contrasted with British unreadiness, 173-180 Gore-Booth (Eva), Women and the Gree ce, The army of, 738-744 'Grit' of our Forefathers, Have we Health and the Board of Education, Heaton (J. Henniker), The Fight for Universal Penny Postage, 588-602 Treaty Privileges to Alien-Subjects, Home Defence, The Insecurity of our, Home Defence, Universal liability for, Home Rule and Irish hatred of Eng- Home Workers, A Minimum Wage Hospitals, Nurses in, 824-836 |