n of Ulster in
the welfare of the Roman Catholic agricultural majority is not merely
that of an onlooker, nor even that of the other parts of the United
Kingdom, but something more. It is obvious that the internal trade of
the country depends mainly upon the demand of the rural population for
the output of the manufacturing towns, and that this demand must depend
on the volume of agricultural production. I think the importance of
developing the home market has not been sufficiently appreciated, even
by Belfast. The best contribution the Ulster Protestant population can
make to the solution of this question is to do what they can to bring
about cordial co-operation between the two great sections of the
wealth-producers of Ireland. They should, I would suggest, learn to take
a broader and more patriotic view of the problems of the Roman Catholic
and agricultural majority, upon the true nature of which I hope to be
able to throw some new light. My purpose will be doubly served if I
have, to some extent, brought home to the minds of my Northern friends
that there is in Ireland an unsettled question in which they are largely
concerned, a rightly unsatisfied people by helping whom they can best
help themselves.

The Irish Question is, then, in that aspect which must be to Irishmen of
paramount importance, the problem of a national existence, chiefly an
agricultural existence, in Ireland. To outside observers it is the
question of rural life, a question which is assuming a social and
economic importance and interest of the most intense character, not only
for Ireland North and South, but for almost the whole civilised world.
It is becoming increasingly difficult in many parts of the world to keep
the people on the land, owing to the enormously improved industrial
opportunities and enhanced social and intellectual advantages of urban
life. The problem can be better examined in Ireland than elsewhere, for
with us it can, to a large extent, be isolated, since we have little
highly developed town life. Our rural exodus takes our people, for the
most part, not into Irish or even into British towns, but into those of
the United States. What is migration in other countries is emigration
with us, and the mind of the country, brooding over the dreary
statistics of this perennial drain, naturally and longingly turns to
schemes for the rehabilitation of rural life--the only life it knows.

We cannot exercise much direct influence upon t