With regard to the Irish land question, we have every reason to be
hopeful of the final and complete success of the great movement
commenced by the organisation founded by Michael Davitt.

We have had, since the days of Strongbow, many conquests and
confiscations and settlements, the main object of each being the
acquisition of the land of Ireland. Is it not marvellous,
notwithstanding all the attempts to destroy our people, how they have
clung to the soil and so absorbed the foreign element that you still so
often find the old tribal names in the old tribal lands? Apart from
this, we have, in the descendants of the various invaders, what would be
a most valuable element in a self-governing Ireland, for whatever be the
creed or the race from which men have sprung, it is but natural that all
should love alike the land of their birth. As a result of Michael
Davitt's labours, that land is to-day more nearly than it has been for
centuries the property of the people, and it seems now, humanly
speaking, impossible that they should ever be dispossessed of it again.

Then there is the improvement in education. At one time it was banned
and hunted along with religion and patriotism. Then it was permitted,
with a view of turning it into a lever against the other two elements.
Concessions have so far been wrung from the British parliament that
there is now a university to which Irish youths can be sent. Here there
is a great factor for good, for while, on the one hand, knowledge is
power, on the other hand the thirst for knowledge has always been
ineradicable in the Irish character. There are also the beginnings of
technical training so long badly needed. Under self-government we should
have been a couple of generations earlier in the race than we are, but
it is not too late.

Lastly, in reckoning up the conditions from which we can take hope and
comfort there is this: In the darkest hour we have never lost faith in
ourselves and our Cause. To find a parallel for such tenacity in the
pages of the history of any land would be difficult.

We come of a race that, through the long, dreary centuries, has never
known despair, nor shall we despair now. I am assured that, before long,
the drain on our life blood that has gone on for sixty years will stop,
and that we shall stand on solid ground at last, ready for an upward
spring.

And so, to the young men of Ireland I would say: Be true to yourselves;
hold fast to the ideals whic