one case Ireland has the prospect of becoming, what her geographical position entitles her to be, the eastern bridge-head of the North Atlantic.  In the other the immense power of the larger capital and larger subsidies of Great Britain will be as effective as any navigation laws of the past in leaving her a derelict by the wayside, continuing to wait idle and hungry, with empty harbours, while the great streams of commerce flow past her to north and south.

And if the theory of laisser faire is rapidly dying out in matters of trade and communications, it has already been largely superseded in regard to social questions.  The duty of the State to expend money in order to level up the standard of life of its citizens, or to prevent their sinking below that standard, is to-day universally recognised.  The methods by which that object is aimed at are various.  There is the crudest form, that of direct money relief, such as is involved in Old Age Pensions.  There is the subsidising of socially desirable economic operations, such as insurance against sickness or the acquisition of freehold by tenants.  There is the expenditure of money on various forms of education, in the scientific assistance of industry and agriculture, in promotion of forestry, drainage, or the improvement of local communication.  There is the enforcement of innumerable regulations to safeguard the health and safety of the working population.  Nowhere has this conception of the duty of the State exercised a greater influence than in Ireland during the last twenty years.  The Congested Districts Board, the Department of Agriculture, the Land Purchase Scheme, illustrate one phase of its carrying into effect.  Old Age Pensions, cheap labourers’ cottages, sickness insurance illustrate another.  All these have been provided out of the United Kingdom exchequer.  They could not be provided out of Irish revenues.  Still less could Irish revenues provide for a continuous extension of this policy in order to keep on a level with English conditions.

It has been stated by Mr. Churchill that under the Government scheme of Home Rule, Land Purchase and Old Age Pensions will be paid by Great Britain.  Even if that were a workable arrangement it only covers a small part of the field.  For the rest Home Rule would mean the complete abandonment of the attempt to level up the social conditions of Great Britain and Ireland to a common standard.  The Irish Government would never have the means to carry out the same programme of social legislation as will be carried out in Great Britain.  Handicapped in competition with British industries it would, moreover, naturally be disinclined, even apart from the question of cost, to apply any legislation or any regulations which might tend to raise the cost of production.  There will thus not only be an inevitable falling back for want of means, but, in addition, a continual temptation to the weaker and more backward State to meet superior industrial efficiency by the temporary cheapness of inferior social conditions.[88]