e districts had known too little of such
things.

Occupying ownership of Irish land by means of State credit was not, of
course, a new policy in Mr. Balfour's day. The Bright clauses (1869)
had introduced the principle into the Statute-book, and Lord Ashbourne's
Act (1885) had carried it several steps further. But it was Mr. Arthur
Balfour and his successors, Mr. Gerald Balfour and Mr. George Wyndham,
who carried it by a series of boldly conceived steps almost within sight
of completion. So thorough was the success of this policy of land
purchase, and so marked was the cessation of crime and outrage and
seditious agitation in every district into which it was carried, that
those who made their living by agitation grew alarmed, and did all in
their power to stop the working of the Purchase Acts. One Nationalist
member declared that the process had gone "quite far enough," and that
he wished it could be stopped. The farmers who had purchased their
holdings were declared to have become selfish, and "as bad as the
landlords." In other words, they had become orderly and industrious, and
had ceased to subscribe for the upkeep of the United Irish League and
its salaried agitators.

The unhappy result of this outcry on the part of those whose occupation
would be gone, and who would be compelled to resort to honest industry
should Ireland become peaceful and prosperous, was the passing of Mr.
Birrell's "amending" Bill, which has practically stopped for the present
the beneficent working of the Wyndham Act of 1903. Under the various
purchase Acts over 180,000 Irish farmers have become the owners of their
holdings, thanks to over one hundred millions of public money advanced
on Imperial credit for the purpose. The first task of a Unionist
government, when again in power, must be the resumption of this policy
of State-aided land-purchase--the only completely and unquestionably
successful and pacifying piece of agrarian legislation in the history of
English rule in Ireland.

Other writers will give, later on, a more detailed account of various
branches of Unionist practical policy in Ireland. The story of the
Congested Districts Board, Mr. Arthur Balfour's special work, is a
romance in itself. So well, in fact, has it accomplished its immediate
task that the time has probably come when it could with advantage be
merged in the later-created Department of Agriculture and Technical
Instruction. This department, which has been linked