The decision of the Treasury to withdraw after June, 1906,
the annual grant now paid as extra fees for the teaching of the Irish language in Irish primary schools has created a considerable stir in Ireland. When the grant was originally made a few years ago under the "extra fees" rule, the National Board of Education estimated the total payments at £2,000 per annum, but owing to the growth of the language movement fostered by the Gaelic League, they have risen to about £12,000, and the cutting off of this sum will undoubtedly prove a serious blow to the two hundred travelling teachers of Irish supplied by the League. The position of the National Board has rendered it peculiarly liable to attack, because, apart from its inability to forecast the amount needed, it has consented to the reduction after admitting, in a private Minute which has fallen into the hands of the Gaelic League, the educational value of Irish. The action of the Treasury, we have no doubt, has been prompted entirely by economical, not political, motives ; but the net result is that a new grievance has been created by miscalculation and incon- sistently. It may not have been wise in the first instance to grant a subsidy to an artificial linguistic propaganda, but the manner of its withdrawal will only lend the movement fresh impetus. As to the alleged political dangers of the language movement, it must be at least admitted that in the past, at any rate, Nationalism in Ireland has been entirely independent of a command of the vernacular. Neither O'Connell, nor John Mitchel, nor Mr. Parnell, nor Mr. Redmond ever addressed a meeting in Irish.
The very dangerous task of blowing up the dynamite ship
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