These considerations will, of course, though they dare not say
so at the moment, weigh equally strongly with the Liberal Government after Home Rule is passed. Unless the Irish insist on Land Purchase passing before the third time of asking of the Home Rule Bill, they will never get it. That is a point which has been made quite clear by Mr. Lloyd George's West Islington speech and his denunciation of peasant proprietorship. Another point which is also made clear by that speech is that the tenant farmers of England and Scotland will obtain nothing out of the great new land agitation when it comes, or, at any rate, nothing that they desire. They will get plenty of talk about fixity of tenure and fair rents and so forth, but it will be clear that any change of ownership will mean the State as the landlord. Now we venture to say that this is a policy little likely to attract the British farmer, especially when he will be told in the same breath that fair rents and fixity of tenure will mean wages boards to fix fair wages and to provide some sort of fixity of tenure for the agricultural labourer. Possibly Mr. Lloyd George thought comparatively little of his words at West Islington, but unless we are very much mistaken they will Imean very great trouble for the Cabinet in the future in deal- ing with the Irish members over the Irish Land Purchase Bill, and bring about the collapse of the new land agitation almost before it has begun. Mr. Lloyd George has ensured a miss- fire for his blunderbuss in the very act of loading it.
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