The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1912. "THE OTHER IRISH QUESTION."

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1503, 27 July 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1912. "THE OTHER IRISH QUESTION."

The Bound feWc-the anonvmous quarterly Review- of the affairs of the Jimpive—aas not yet come into its own, perhaps because the hope iaro-dsed by its platform that Greater Britain" (through the ! oversea writers connected with tho venture) would make itself clearly and distinctively heard, has been iar from realised. This disappointment, however, has been outweighed by the great good, luck of the Itouvd ia«.3s_ promoters in securing, for the writing of its main articles, iinglishmen so brilliant and philosophical that one is irritated not to : Know whom to applaud for their I articles, 'i'hose two really great articles in the March issue—on "the Balkan Danger" and "Lombard Street and War"—which woke up so many jaded political writers in Britain, set a standard which is .<mi y malntaln pd by the article on iho .Other Irish Question" in the current number. We can givo a taste of its quality, and at the same time show how sadly alien to reality are the fumes and fires of the Home ltule agitation, by quoting the very first sentence of the 35-page article in which the real Irish problem is set on its four solid legs: "Men speak of the settlement of the Irish question, meaning by that the solution not of an Irish, but of an English difficulty." Nobody .with a heart can help feeling for the real troubles of Ireland; it is those, however with heads as well as hearts who arc the real friends of Ireland —tnoso who realise how fictitious, how purely sentimental, how damaging to the human beings in Ireland is the talent of "the Irish quesr n .Vrf> a problem in political emotloV., instead of a problem in social organisation and industry. "Ireland," says the writer, "has hitherto been to Patrick a legend, a being mentioned in patriotic poetry, a little dark Rose, a mystic maiden, a vague but very simple creature of tears and aspirations and revolts.' . This conception, has done enormous harm to Ireland's true -interests: for one thing it has made possible the wild gi'otesquerio of Mr. Birrell as an Irish Secretary and the reductionof Ireland's fortunes to a counter in the cynical political game of British Radicalism.

Tho facts of 'the real Irish problem were realised years ago by Sin. Horace Plunkett and other ''Irish Sages," who, "meditating long on the Irish state, dispelled for themselves the great illusion that the Irishman was a political animal and .made the discovery that he was a being." The result was the I.A.O.S.—as the famous Irish Agricultural Organisation Society is called for short—and the Round Table writer gives an intensely interesting account of the character , and work _of this truly wonderful body. It is represented—we belicvo it is an exaggeration—that the Land Acts have clone practically nothing. But our writer shows that the 1.A.0.5. has worked a miracle. He uses for' his argument Patrick Malone, a typical Irish farmer, poor, with a large family, toiling hard by pre-Adamjte methods to extract a hungry living from his land, and utterly ignorant of science, of modern developments, and of economics—the _ victim of shady little local combines, tho prey of mean little jobbers, the slave of the nombeen man. He grew a little grain, "but he was strong on potatoes . He fed the earth with them until the earth was sick of them." He valued fertilisers in proportion to their smell. In short, "he was the primitive economic cave man, and the darkness of his cave was unillumined by any ray of general principles. He had a dark appreciation of the intelligence of 'the middlemen who swarmed ' about him." And that was all. But Sir Horace Plunkett came upon the scene, and sowed good. seed, great seed—the seed of tho 1.A.0.5. What changes did the Society produce in Patrick? He has realised the dignity of his profession; he has learned the rough general principles of trade;-he has joined with his neighbours for co-operative purchasing of seeds, manure and machinery, ,and purchases them far cheaper. ■■ He gets more lor his milk, by substituting sterilisation of his cans for the old superstitious propitiations of "thegood folk" (i.e., the fairies). By sitting on the creamery committee he_ learns, first, the existence of bacteria, second, 1 the value of special and expert knowledgo (as he sees it in tho creamery manager), and, third, the fact that he competes with Danes, Americans, Russians, and Colonials. ■ "The roar of the planet begins to sound in his ears. Wisely, the organisation of. awakenment banned religion and politics, and in the 1.A.0.5. the Catholic and Protestant, the Nationalist and Unionist, work together for their common interest. Sir Horace Plunkett was for a time a voice in the wilderness preaching "agricultural cooperation." The Society was formed in 1894, and sent its organisers into the field. In Jess than 20 years it "has made agricultural co-operation a national policy. It has organised one hundred thousand fanners in close on nine hundred and fifty societies. ... . The societies carry on the business of co-operative dairying, deal in poultry and eggs, scutch flax, buy agricultural requirements, secure cheap credit for their members, cure baoon, while some provide employment in lace and crochet making for the women." The total business done to date by these societies, is near thirty million pounds. '

The greatest value of the Society's work is its cultivation of self-re-liance and independence in a country where for years the country papers were full of reports of meetings calling on the Government to save the district by starting "an industry." Being a reform movement in the strictest sense, the policy of agricultural co-operation is encountering, and will continue to encounter, vested interests, but, according to the Hound Table writer, the 1.A.0.5. is able to fight for its own hand. And all the time the Society is spreading wider the idea that Ireland is anation of men and/ women and not simply a subject for beautiful poetry and passionate laments. "It is connecting him [the Irish farmer] with his nation through his membership of a national movement, not for the political purpose which calls on him for a vote once in four or live years, but for economic purposes which affect him in the course of his daily occupations." From other sources we can gather abundant confirmation of the coiTnctoic.is of the writer's estimato of the- value and lncaninjr of

the work of Sift Hokace Pmjnkett, and his conclusion is that whether Home little comes or not, Ireland ■jviU be saved by the triumph of Sib ■rioitACE's idea, which is above all things "a real policy, something more valuable than the opportunism which tinkers here and there at a cH'aek in Society but has no guiding fundamental ideas." One can but hope that this is true to the last letiwr. Within the last few years most of the ancient Anglophobia that coloured and heated Irish Nationalism has disappeared: there is not much market for the virulent rhetoric and tears of the once-suc-cessful traders on the passionate memories, that filled Patrick Mαlonst's mind in the days before Sin HoiiACE Plunkett showed him the way to fill his purse and help his fatherland. Before the Home Rule Bill passes, the realities of Ireland's needs —which are not political, but purely economic—will probably fill the Irish sky; and we may yefc see an Ireland regenerated and prosperous without the aid of a Parliament sitting, in Dublin.