The prospects of Irish agriculture under the Union include a return to the land policy of 1903, with its fair hopes of reconciliation between classes and creeds, and its accomplished result of abounding prosperity.  What are the prospects of Irish agriculture under Home Rule?  Of what Home Rule may mean in this, as in other respects, we have been told so little that we are driven to consider its effect on Irish agriculture in the light of two contingencies.  It may be that the extremists, with whom Mr. Dillon invariably ranges himself, as a preliminary to dragging Mr. Redmond after him, will have their way.  In that case, Ireland will exact complete fiscal autonomy from a Government which invariably surrenders to Mr. Dillon’s puppet.  Should this occur, land purchase will cease abruptly in the absence of credit for borrowing the sums it requires.  Take the other alternative, hazily outlined by Mr. Winston Churchill at Belfast.  We glean from his pronouncement that the Government intend—­if they can—­to refuse fiscal autonomy, and to preserve control over land purchase.  Can it be expected that this attempt, even if it succeeds, will produce better results for land purchase than the pitiable failure of the Act of 1909?  Is it not certain that less money will be raised in England, for Ireland, after Home Rule?  And if raised in driblets, on what will it be spent?  Obviously, not on the policy of 1903, but on the policy substituted by Mr. Dillon in 1909.  It will be spent on expelling landlords and graziers to make room for subscribers to the propaganda of extremists.  We must judge of what will happen to agriculture after Home Rule by what has happened since the Treaty of 1903 was repudiated.  Nor must we forget that Mr. Dillon’s destructive activity has ranged beyond land purchase.  That policy could have achieved little but for the untiring and generous patriotism of Sir Horace Plunkett.  He established the Department of Agriculture and converted his countrymen to co-operation, in the absence of which no system of small ownership can succeed.  He, too, based his efforts on a conference—­the Recess Committee.  How has he been met?  Mr. Redmond, a member of that Committee, as later of the Land Conference, has, here again, succumbed to Mr. Dillon, who seeks to defeat co-operation between farmers, in the interests of his disciples; whilst Mr. Russell, with the hectic zeal of a pervert, has refused Ireland’s share of the new Development Grant in order to spite Sir Horace Plunkett.

Such signs of the times are read in Ireland more quickly than in England, and in several ways.  To this man they spell speedy triumph for the form of economic insanity in which he vindictively believes; to that man, the retention of an office won by recanting his opinions.  But there are others in the saddest districts of Ireland who must also be taken into account.  To the few—­for they are few—­who thrive by deeds of darkness whenever the Union is attacked, these signs of coming change suggest a more