the meantime local councils have taught us
what is likely to happen. Minorities are virtually excluded from them
and from paid places in their gift. Of Protestants holding local office
the great majority are survivals from the old Grand Jury system.
Political discussions are frequent, but they are all among Nationalists.
Intolerance of independent opinion and impatience of criticism are
everywhere noticeable, and the Corporation of Dublin does not show a
good example. It is intolerance of this kind rather than any approach to
religious persecution that Protestants suffer from in the present and
fear for the future.

Men who have something to lose dread the idea of Home Rule, including
farmers who have bought their holdings, but as yet this has not been
allowed time to work. There is a long way between not caring to support
a Nationalist and voting for a Unionist. The chief employers of labour
are mostly for the Union, but few are in a position to help the Unionist
cause effectively, for they have to deal with strike makers and possible
boycotters. When Labour troubles come, Nationalist politicians try to
make out that they are caused by English agitators, and that there would
be none under Home Rule. The probability is all the other way. There
could be nothing in the existence of an Irish Parliament to prevent
English Socialists from crossing the Channel, and some Labour leaders in
England are Irish. We have heard a great deal lately about the union of
the two democracies, and that is the point where they would unite.
Passing from labour to land, which is after all the great interest of
Southern and Western Ireland, the danger is even greater. With the loss
of British credit it would be almost impossible to carry out the plan of
occupying ownership without the grossest injustice, and the mischief
would not stop there. An Irish Government would be poor, but would be
expected to do all and more than all that the united government has
done. At first the gap might be stopped by extravagant super-income tax,
by half-compensated seizures of demesne land, and by penalising the
owners of ground rents and town property. Confiscation is not a
permanent source of wealth, for it soon kills the goose that laid the
golden egg. Then the turn of the large farmer would come.

Most Unionists, and many who call themselves Home Rulers, are satisfied
with the form of government they now have. The country has prospered
wonderfully, and it