in a later chapter.[64]
That great department of administration must, for financial reasons, be
worked in harmonious consultation with the British Government; but it
ought to be controlled by Ireland, and a free and normal outlet given to
criticisms like those emanating from Mr. William O'Brien, whatever the
intrinsic value of these criticisms. Purchase itself settles nothing
beyond the bare ownership of the land. It leaves the distribution and
use of the land, except in the "resettled" districts, where it was, with
a third or a quarter of the holdings so small as to be classed as
"uneconomic." Ireland is not as yet awake to the possibilities of the
silent revolution proceeding from the erection of a small peasant
proprietorship. The sense of responsibility in these new proprietors
will be quickened and the interests of the whole country forwarded by a
National Parliament.

Temperance will never be tackled thoroughly but by an Irish Parliament.
All Irishmen are ashamed in their hearts of the encouragement given to
drunkenness by the still grossly excessive number of licensed houses,
which in 1909 was 22,591, and of the National Drink Bill, which in the
same year was L13,310,469,[65] or L3 11d. per head of a population not
rich in this world's goods. Temperance is not really a party or a
sectarian question. All the Churches make noble efforts to forward
reform, and in a rationally governed Ireland reform would be considered
on its merits. At present it is inextricably mixed up with Nationalist
and anti-Nationalist politics, and with irrelevant questions of Imperial
taxation.

The latest examples of the embarrassment into which Ireland without Home
Rule is liable to drift from the absence of a formed public opinion and
the means to give it effect, are the labour troubles and the National
Insurance scheme. There are signs that English labour is thrusting
forward Irish labour in advance of its own will and in advance of
general Irish opinion. In all labour questions Ireland's position as an
agricultural country is totally different from that of Great Britain.
The same legislation cannot be applicable to both. Ireland should frame
her own. Under present conditions it is impossible to know the
considered judgment of Ireland. There is certainly much opposition to
Insurance, and if all Irishmen thoroughly realized that the scheme might
complicate the finance of Home Rule and involve a greater financial
dependence on Great Bri