Under the heading of " Sinn Fein and Ireland "
the West- minster Gazette has been publishing a series of interviews with leading spokesmen of different sections of Nationalist opinion. All are interesting and instructive, but we have only space to note the passage in which Mr. F. Crilly, the secretary of the United Irish League of Great Britian, defends the Parliamentary Party from the charge of the Sinn Feiners that the cost of the agitation, and the expenses incidental to the upkeep of the Parliamentary machine, have been out of all proportion to the benefits received. This is Mr. Crilly's answer :— " The assertion borders on the ludicrous. Observe the actual facts. The Land Act of 1881 reduced rents by .82,059,000, the Arrears Act two years later wiped completely out £2,000,000 of arrears. Under the Land Purchase Acts over £40,000,000 has been advanced for the purchase of Irish land, and the Act of 1903 provided for a further advance of £112,000,000. Then the Labourers Act involved the expenditure of .C4,650,000 in the pro- vision of cottages for the labourers. Light railways, migration, and agricultural Acts have caused, in transferring tenants to richer lands and developing agriculture, an outlay of .C3,816,000. These make the substantial total of £164,525,000 secured by the Irish Party and its policy from 1879 to 1903, for the improvement of the social conditions in Ireland."
Mr. Crilly then gives Mr. Davitt's estimate of the total sum contributed by the whole Irish race during the above period— for distress, famine, evicted tenants, public testimonials, legal expenses, the defence of those prosecuted by the English Government, and the cost of the maintenance of the Irish Party—at £1,200,000. It is worthy of record that this aspect of the financial relations of Great Britain and Ireland should be recognised by an official representative of the Irish Parlia- mentary Party.
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