In point of fact, Irish local authorities, under the circumstances, are wonderfully free from these evils, only another proof of the resilience and vitality of the country under persistent mismanagement.  On the whole they bear comparison with British local authorities in thrift, purity, and efficiency.  None of them has ever yet had a scandal like that of Poplar.  All of them have shown sense and spirit in forwarding sanitation and technical education.  They vary widely, of course, the lowest units in the scale being the least efficient, as in England.  County Councils, for example, are better than Rural District Councils.  On the other hand, Dublin Corporation, though not so bad as it is sometimes painted, occasionally sets a very bad example.  The standard of efficiency is higher in the Protestant north than in the Catholic south, the standard of religious toleration lower.  But at bottom it is not a question of theology, as every well-informed person knows, but a question of politics.  The same causes that keep the landed gentry out of Parliament keep them, although not to the same degree, out of local politics.  Sometimes this is their own fault, for declining to take part in them; for many of the Protestant upper class in Nationalist districts obtain election in spite of being Unionists.  Tolerance is slowly growing in Nationalist, though not, it is to be feared, in Unionist, districts; again a quite intelligible fact.[58] But when all is said and done, it is an undeniable fact that Irish local authorities, especially those in the poverty-stricken west, where all social activities are more retrograde than elsewhere, are capable of great improvement, and that improvement can come only by allowing them to concentrate on local affairs, and obtain the co-operation of all classes and religions.  The very existence of a central Government of which Irishmen were proud would influence the tone and standard of all minor authorities to the bottom of the scale.

Meanwhile, obvious and urgent problems, which no Parliament but an Irish Parliament can deal with, cry aloud for settlement.  The Poor Law, railways, arterial drainage, afforestation, are questions which I need only refer to by name, confining myself to the greater issues.  Education, primary and intermediate, is perhaps the greatest.  The present system is almost universally condemned, and its bad results are recognized.  It has got to be reformed.  By no possibility can it be reformed so long as the Union lasts, not only because the Boards, National and Intermediate, which control education, are composed of unelected amateurs, but because there is no means of finding out what the national opinion is as to the course reform is to take.  Meanwhile the children and the country suffer.  The Intermediate Board is a purely examining and prize-giving body, and its system by general agreement is imperfect.  In the National or Primary schools the percentage of average daily attendance (71.1 per cent.), though slowly improving,