Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/69

 that continuity be carried forward, and some State be devised that shall express the National intuition and desire, and be the old State re-born into modern conditions while perfectly fitting and conveying the requirements of a new and intricate life?

Manifestly in the first place the incompleted work of the nineteenth century, where the nation clearly asserted its desire, must be brought as speedily as possible to an end. That is to say, Land Purchase must be completed. This is necessary for several reasons, all of which vitally affect each part of the country, since nations are not tissues of separate interests, nor even an entanglement of separate interests, but co-ordinated wholes. It is economically necessary. Industrial centres, such as Belfast, depend for their enterprise on capital accumulated, not primarily from their own reserves, but from other sources. In Ireland those other sources are mainly derived from farmers' deposits. The sooner, therefore, farmers can be relieved from the uneconomical drain on their industry known as rent the sooner will they be able to accumulate balances that will be available for industrial enterprise. Sound economy suggests that the main source of a nation's wealth, its land, should be freed from the burden of rents, especially as these rents are usually spent to the advantage of other countries. It is also politically necessary. It is not at all likely that an agitation that convulsed the nineteenth century will die away with its work incompleted; and no nation can afford to lets its path be encumbered by a continual agitation the justice of which has been