the best thought of every class in the country
has given enthusiastic support to the programme on grounds not of
personal interest but of national duty. We may therefore take it that
the watchword of the Second Empire, _Enrichissez-vous,_ will be the
watchword of a self-governing Ireland. What Parliament and the State can
do to forward that aim will naturally be a subject of controversy. To
Free Traders and Tariff Reformers, alike, the power that controls the
Customs' tariff of a country controls its economic destiny. Both would
seem bound to apply the logic of their respective gospels to Ireland.
But as it is not the aim of this book to anticipate the debates of next
year, but rather to explain the foundations of the Home Rule idea, we
may leave that burning question for the present untouched. Apart from it
we can anticipate the trend of policy in Ireland. The first great task
of a Home Rule Parliament would be above controversy; it would be
neither more nor less than a scientific exploration of the country. No
such Economic Survey has ever been made, and the results are lamentable.
There has been no mapping out of the soil areas from the point of view
of Agricultural Economics, and, for the lack of such impartial
information, the fundamental conflict between tillage and grazing goes
on in the dark. We know where coal is to be found in Ireland; we do not
know with any assurance where it is and where it is not profitably
workable. The same is true of granite, marble, and indeed all our
mineral resources.

The woollen industry flourishes in one district and fails in another, to
all appearance as favourably situated; it seems capable of great
expansion and yet it does not expand greatly. What then are the
conditions of success? Here is a typical case that calls for scientific
analysis. One can pick at random a dozen such instances. Ireland,
admirably adapted to the production of meat, does not produce meat, but
only the raw material of it, store cattle. Is this state of things
immutable? Or is a remedy for it to be found, say, in a redistribution
of the incidence of local taxation so as to favour well-used land as
against ill-used land? Is the decline in the area under flax to be
applauded or deplored? Can Irish-grown wool be improved up to the
fineness of the Australian article? And so on, and so on. It is to be
noted that of the statistics which we do possess many of the most
important are, to say the least, involved in