On Wednesday, in reply to an appeal from Mr. W.
O'Brien, who asked for an undertaking that the work of land purchase should be carried on by the British Legislature, Mr. Birrell declared, on behalf of the Prime Minister, that the Government realized that the Imperial credit must continue to be employed. Whatever might happen to the measure, they undertook to make, at the earliest possible moment, such alterations as could be made to facilitate and accelerate land purchase, and he went so far as to state that, in his opinion, the completion of making tenants the owners of their land was for the moment more important than Home Rule. But if this is the Government view, why in the name of wonder did they deliberately amend the Purchase Act in such a way as to stop it working ? Mr. Redmond, naturally, could not agree with this indiscreet admission, but expressed his gratification at the announcement, declaring that any re- pudiation of the pledges given as to the continuance of Imperial credit would be the basest treachery to Ireland. Mr. Austen Chamberlain in a powerful speech pointed out that on Mr. Birrell's own admission the Constitution had been turned upside-down so that the thing of less importance might be done while the more important was left undone. The Unionist Party were pledged to facilitate land purchase provided Great Britain and Ireland remained under the same Parliament, but he strongly supported the view, expressed in these columns, that if the Union was broken the English people would lay claim to the use of their own credit, which had not been pledged to Ireland in the situation which -would then have been created.
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