Irishmen apparently can do nothing without State aid. The grazing
interest there is now suffering, as the corn-growing interest in England has long been doing, from low prices and foreign competition. The stock-breeders are, therefore, beseeching Government to appoint an Irish Minister of Agri- culture—which would be absurd in a Government about to propose Irish Home-rule—to compel a lowering in the charges for cattle transit between Cork and Liverpool, to relax the orders against the admission of infected cattle into England ; and to aid in dispersing the eleven thousand beasts now congre- gated on too small an area in Dublin itself. A Home-rule Government, it is evident, will have enough to do with its money ; but even if it spent half its spare revenue on " en- couraging" the cattle interest, it could do nothing without British help. The market is here, yet Irishmen are actually striving to make of their one grand customer a foreigner with no interest in their prosperity. They do not even see that this is dangerous, or that, in the event of a quarrel between Britain and Ireland, they might all be ruined in twelve months without the greater Power being conscious that she had lifted more than a finger. "Please go away, you dis- gusting people ; but help us to drive and to sell our beasts." That is the latest Irish demand, and if there were a laugh left in the country, it would surely excite it.
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