Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/70

 admitted. The necessity in statesmanship follows closely upon this. The nation has clearly indicated that, just as the old State was built on the free possession of the land, so must the new State be built. It being the task of statesmanship to give expression to the desires of a nation while preserving the unity and balance of the whole, this particular desire must be satisfied, and built into the Polity, if the work of statesmanship is not to fall into ruin in its hands.

Yet in order that Land Purchase should be completed the Nation must be financially free, without burdens placed upon it by any considerations outside its shores. Needless to say, Land Purchase under an Irish State will be a different matter from the same purchase as devised by foreign governments. The Nation will pay a single-minded attention to its own interests. Its good faith will be an essential part of those interests; but it will not be easily embarrassed by fictitious prices and delaying methods to inflate values. Nevertheless, much of the world 's wealth having somehow escaped in gas and shell-splinters, and Ireland being as the result of long oppression a poor nation, the completion of Land Purchase will require a nation absolutely unencumbered by any other demands on its wealth than the demand of its own problems.

That is to say, before any building can proceed its foundation must be assured, the foundation being the same as preceded the building in the old State. That building, it will be remembered, was not possible, and the State could not be said to have