Irish land question.

This is all I need say about that stage of the Irish agrarian situation
at which we have now arrived. What I wish my readers to bear in mind is
that the effect of a bad system of land tenure upon the other aspects of
the Irish Question reaches much further back than the struggles,
agitations, and reforms in connection with Irish land which this
generation has witnessed. The same may be said with regard to the other
economic grievances. No one can be more anxious than I am to fasten the
mind of my countrymen upon the practical things of to-day, and to wean
their sad souls from idle regrets over the sorrows of the past. If I
revive these dead issues, it is because I have learned that no man can
move the Irish mind to action unless he can see its point of view, which
is largely retrospective. I cannot ignore the fact that the attitude of
mind which causes the Irish people to put too much faith in legislative
cures for economic ills is mainly due to the belief that their ancestors
were the victims of a long series of laws by which every industry that
might have made the country prosperous was jealously repressed or
ruthlessly destroyed. Those who are not too much appalled by the
quantity to examine into the quality of popular oratory in Ireland are
familiar with the subordination of present economic issues to the dreary
reiteration of this old tale of woe. Personally I have always held that
to foster resentment in respect of these old wrongs is as stupid as was
the policy which gave them birth; and, even if it were possible to
distribute the blame among our ancestors, I am sure we should do
ourselves much harm, and no living soul any good, in the reckoning. In
my view, Anglo-Irish history is for Englishmen to remember, for Irishmen
to forget.

I may now conclude my appeal to outside observers for a broader and more
philosophic view of my country and my countrymen with a suggestion born
of my own early mistakes, and with a word of warning which is called for
by my later observation of the mistakes of others. The difficulty of the
outside observer in understanding the Irish Question is, no doubt,
largely due to the fact that those in intimate touch with the actual
conditions are so dominated by vehement and passionate conviction that
reason is not only at a discount but is fatal to the acquisition of
popular influence. Of course the power of knowledge and thought, though
kept in the background, is not