Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/92

 be held and worked by the stateships in whose territories they lay, under the direction of the State. But then the question arises, what royalties would the State charge for the working of what truly is the wealth of the whole Nation and not the sole possession of any of its stateships? And the answer is that if taxation were levied on stateships according to their capacities this would automatically adjust itself without the necessity of adopting any direct device.

Then there is the question of the promotion of industry. No State can leave this to hazard. It must be made part of a disciplined effort. Nations must be made as far as is possible self-subsistent. No government can stand idly by and say that its people are either naturally industrial or agricultural, or declare piously that the whims and hazards of private enterprise are the workings of wisdom. Attitudes of this kind are the abrogation of all government. Governments, in the degree in which they are governments, must set out to create what, after, careful thought, they conceive to be a living and liveable balance of the activities of the national life, and to create it by and in an order that ensures dignity, decency and subsistence to all its people. The task may not be easy, but any neglect of it is treason to the State. In an Ireland organised by responsible stateships the task would be simplified. Ireland possesses, possibly in as great a measure as any nation, what is known as White-Power. By harnessing the manifold rivers that intersect her soil electricity can be directed to each