ously short space of
time since the attainment, barely twenty years ago, of the elementary
conditions of social peace, they have gone so far as they have gone
towards the creation of a self-reliant, independently thinking, united
Ireland. The whole weight of Imperial authority has been thrown into the
scale against them. Whatever the mood and policy of British upholders of
the Union, whether sympathetic or hostile, wise or foolish, their
constant message to both parties in Ireland has been, "Look to us. Trust
in us. You are divided. We are umpires," and the reader will no doubt
remember that the theory of "umpirage" was used in exactly the same way
in the Colonies, notably in Upper Canada,[45] to thwart the tendency
towards a reconciliation of creeds, races, and classes. Fortunately,
there have been Irishmen who have laboured to counteract the effects of
this enervating policy, and to reconstruct, by native effort from
within, a new Ireland on the ruins of the old. Whether or not they have
consciously aimed at Home Rule matters not a particle. Some have, some
have not; but the result of these efforts has been the same, to pull
Irishmen together and to begin the creation of a genuinely national
atmosphere.

It is not part of my scheme to describe in detail the various movements,
agricultural, industrial, economic, literary, political, which in the
last twenty years have contributed to this national revival. Some have a
world-wide fame, all have been excellently described at one time or
another by writers of talent and insight.[46] My purpose is to note
their characteristics and progress, and to estimate their political
significance. In the first place it must be remembered that some of the
most important of the modern legislative measures have been initiated
and promoted by Home Rulers and Unionists, Roman Catholics and
Protestants, acting in friendly co-operation and throwing aside their
political and religious antagonisms. Such was the origin of the great
Land Purchase Act of 1903, which Mr. Wyndham drafted on the basis of an
agreement reached at a friendly conference of landlords and
representatives of tenants. But a far more interesting and hopeful
instance of co-operation had taken place seven years earlier. One of the
very few really constructive measures of the last twenty years, the Act
of 1899 for setting up the Department of Agriculture and Technical
Instruction, was the direct outcome of the recommendations of