Let me sum up.

More than half the agricultural land of Ireland is sold to the tenants, or agreed to be sold.  Eleven million acres out of 183/4 million acres have changed hands, or will soon change hands; 315,623 out of 554,060 occupiers now pay annuities or interest in lieu of rent, to the amount of nearly 4 million pounds.  In regard to value, out of a total value of 208 millions for the whole agricultural land of Ireland, 661/2 millions have actually been advanced for purchase, 461/2 millions are due to be advanced under signed agreements; and, on the extreme estimate of the Land Commission, based on the supposition that all the remaining land will ultimately be sold, 95 millions more will have to be advanced.  Total future liability on the extreme estimate, 1411/2 millions; or, if we take the more moderate and reasonable figure I suggested, 1211/2 millions.

Now, two conditions must be laid down—­

     1.  Purchase ought to continue.

     2.  Cheap Imperial credit is necessary for it.

These conditions ought not to entail, beyond a strictly limited point, the continued control of Purchase by the Imperial Government.  That step, as I suggested at p. 221, might involve Imperial control over (1) the Congested Districts Board; (2) the whole work of the Land Commission, outside Purchase, and all Irish land legislation; (3) the Irish police; because the power of distraint for annuities, the last resource of the creditor Government, rests, of course, with the arm of the law.

Any one of these consequences, as I have urged, would be inconsistent with responsible government in Ireland.

What are the objections to Irish control over Purchase, with its corollary, Irish payment of the running costs of Purchase?  Two distinct interests have to be considered:  (1) That of the British taxpayer; (2) that of the landlord.

1.  If we carry out the plan I have advocated, the British taxpayer, as soon as he ceases to contribute to the diminishing subsidy suggested at p. 284 in order to meet the initial deficit in the national Irish balance-sheet, will cease to contribute anything towards the running costs, landlord’s bonus, and flotation losses of a Purchase operation for the necessity of which Great Britain, in the past, was in reality responsible.  Great Britain is under a moral obligation to continue to support Land Purchase with her national credit, which is indispensable.  She is also entitled to demand whatever reasonable conditions she thinks fit, for example, a share in the nomination of Land and Estates Commissioners; while any new legislation will, in the ordinary course, need her assent.  The security, as I said above, will be impregnable.  The purchasing tenant would become the tenant of the Irish State.  The Irish Government, as a whole, instead of the individual annuitants, would, of course, be responsible to the Imperial Government, would collect the annuities itself, and bear any contingent loss by their non-payment.  To repudiate a public obligation of that sort would be as ruinous to Ireland as the repudiation of a public debt is to any State in the world.