falls on the just and
the unjust, so do their rain-swollen floods spoil with serene
impartiality Nationalist hay and Orange hay, Catholic oats and
Presbyterian oats. Will "Ulster" fight against an effort to check the
mischief? Then there is re-afforestation. As the result mainly of the
waste of war, Ireland, which ought to be a richly wooded country, is
very poor in that regard. In consequence of this, a climate, moister
than need be, distributes colds and consumption among the population,
without any religious test, and unchecked winds lodge the corn of all
denominations. Re-afforestation, as offering a profit certain but a
little remote, and promising a climatic advantage diffused over the
whole area of the country, is eminently a matter for public enterprise.
Are we to be denied the hope that fir, and spruce, and Austrian pine may
conceivably be lifted out of the plane of Party politics? Further, to
take instances at haphazard, the State, whatever else its economic
functions may be, will be one of the largest purchasers of commodities
in the country. It is thinkable that the Irish State may give its civil
servants Irish-made paper to write on in their offices. It may even so
arrange things that when Captain Craig comes to the House of Commons at
College Green he shall sit on an Irish-made bench, dine off a cloth of
Belfast linen, and be ruthlessly compelled to eat Meath beef, Dublin
potatoes, and Tipperary butter. In such horrible manifestations of Home
Rule I do not discern the material for a revolution. Again, it may be
proposed that in order to develop manufactures, municipalities and
county councils may be given power to remit local rates on newly
established factories for an initial period of, say, ten years. It may
occur to evil-minded people to increase the provision for technical
instruction in certain centres for the same end. The Irish State may
think it well to maintain agents in London, New York, and some of the
continental capitals with a view to widening the external market for
Irish products. I do not say that a Home Rule Parliament will do all
these things, but they are the sort of thing that it will do. And the
mere naked enumeration of them is sufficient to show that such an
Assembly will have ample matter of economic development upon which to
keep its teeth polished without devouring either priests or
Protestants.

There are other urgent questions upon which unanimity exists even at
present, for