Of course it is unfair to attribute the prosperity or the decline of a country to any one measure; and more than that, it is only by taking into consideration a number of circumstances and a long term of years that we can decide whether prosperity is real or merely transitory.  But that Ireland increased in prosperity under the influence of the Unionist Government, cannot be denied; indeed Mr. Redmond, when shepherding the Eighty Club (an English Radical Society) through Ireland in 1911, did not deny the prosperity of the country, and could only suggest that the same reforms would have been introduced and better carried out under an Irish Parliament—­regardless of the facts that no Nationalist Government could have found the money for them; and that Nationalists are orators and politicians, not men of business.  The combined value of exports and imports rose from 104,000,000 in 1904 to 125,000,000 in 1909; and the gross receipts on railways from L4,140,000 to L11,335,000.  The deposits in savings banks rose from L3,128,000 in 1888 to L10,627,000 in 1908.  The tonnage of shipping in Irish ports was 11,560,000 in 1900; in 1910 it was 13,475,000.

Sir Horace had done his utmost to prevent the curse of political strife from entering into his agricultural projects.  He had been careful to appoint Nationalists to some of the most important offices in his Department, and to show no more favour to one part of the country than another.  But all in vain; the National League, when their friends returned to power, at once resolved to undo his labours, some of them openly saying that the increased attention devoted to trade and agriculture was turning men’s thoughts away from the more important work of political agitation.  Mr. T.W.  Russell, a man totally ignorant of agricultural affairs, whose only claim to the office was that he was a convert to Nationalism, was appointed in place of Sir Horace.  He promptly declined to continue to the Agricultural Organization Society the support which it had previously received from the Department; and, with the aid of the United Irish League, succeeded in preventing the Society from receiving a grant from the Board of Agriculture similar to those given to the English and Scotch societies; threw discredit on the Co-operative Credit Banks, and denounced the Co-operative Farming Societies as injurious to local shopkeepers.  And thus he made it clear that it is impossible in Ireland to conduct even such a business as the development of agriculture without stirring up political bitterness.

Another effort of Mr. Balfour’s—­the establishment of the Congested Districts Board—­has had a strange and instructive history.  It was established in 1891.  Mr. Balfour decided to entrust to a small body of Irishmen, selected irrespective of party considerations, the task of making an experiment as to what could be done to relieve the poorest parts of Ireland; and with this object, the Board, though endowed with only small funds, were given the widest