The whole machinery of Irish Government, and the whole fiscal system under which Ireland lives, need to be thoroughly overhauled by Irishmen in their own interests, and in the interests of Great Britain.  Among many other writers, Mr. Barry O’Brien, in his “Dublin Castle and the Irish People,” Lord Dunraven in “The Outlook in Ireland,” and Mr. G.F.H.  Berkeley in a paper contributed to “Home Rule Problems,” have lucidly and wittily described the wonderful collection of sixty-seven irresponsible and unrelated Boards nominated by the Chief Secretary, or Lord-Lieutenant, which, with the official services beneath them, constitute the colonial bureaucracy of Ireland; the extravagance of the judicial and other salaries, and the total lack of any central control worthy of the name.  By omitting a number of insignificant little bureaux, the figure 67, according to Mr. Berkeley’s classification, may be reduced to 42, of which 26 are directly under Castle influence, and the rest either branches of British Departments or directly under the Treasury.  In 1906, out of 1,611 principal official posts, 626 were obtained purely by nomination, and 766 by a qualifying examination only.  In an able-bodied male population, which we may estimate at a million, there are reckoned to be about 60,000 persons employed by the State, or 1 in 18.  If we add 180,000 Old Age Pensioners, we reach the figure of nearly a quarter of a million persons, out of a total population of under four and a half millions, dependent wholly or partially for their living on the State, exclusive of Army and Navy pensioners; again about 1 in 18.  Four millions of money are paid in salaries or pensions to State employees, and two and three-quarter millions to Old Age Pensioners.

It is so easy to make fun about Irish administration that one has to be cautious not to mistake the nature or exaggerate the dimensions of the evil.  The great defect is that the expenditure is not controlled by Ireland and has no relation to the revenue derived from Ireland.  The Castle is not the odious institution that it was in the dark days of the land war; but it is still a foreign, not an Irish institution, working, like the Government of the most dependent of Crown Colonies, in a world of its own, with autocratic powers, and immunity from all popular influence.  Beyond the criticism that one religious denomination, the Church of Ireland, is rather unduly favoured in patronage, there is no personal complaint against the officials.  They are as able, kindly, hard-working, and courteous as any other officials.  Some of the principal posts are held by men of the highest distinction, who will be as necessary to the new Government as to the old.  It is absolutely essential, but it will not be easy, to make substantial administrative economies at the outset, not only from the additional stress of novel work which will be thrown upon a Home Rule Government, but from the widespread claims of vested interests.  It will require courageous statesmanship,