The policy to which the leaders of the Unionist party stand pledged may now be re-stated in the words which I was authorised to use by Mr. Arthur Balfour and Lord Lansdowne after consultation with their colleagues. Speaking on July 9, 1909, I said:--
"Our attitude is, that it is necessary to deal effectively with the block of pending agreements, but in dealing with that block it is not necessary to prejudice the interests either of the landlords or tenants, who may come to terms on some future agreements. We think that the spirit of the Act of 1903 must be observed in the case of pending agreements, but it must not be departed from in the case of future agreements."--Hansard, 1909, vol. vii. No. 93, cols. 1542, 1543.
Mr. Bonar Law confirms this pledge. He instructs me to say that the Unionist party will resume the land policy of 1903, and pursue the same objects by the best methods until all have been fully and expeditiously achieved.
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.