As the result of further correspondence with Mr. Birrell, Sir
Horace Plunkett has arranged to quit his post in the Whiteun. tide Recess. In this context we may note an admirable letter from "An Old Irish Liberal" in Tuesday's Westminster Gazette. The writer, after commenting on the strange spectacle of a Liberal Government closing its mind and hardening its heart against the reconsidering of the Constitu- tional question involved, points out that the Department is unique in the United Kingdom in its Constitutional relations, and that the arrangement of 1899 was not intended to last for all time, but was frankly experimental and tentative in many of its details. In any case, it is, as he says, sufficiently amazing that the Government should have made up their minds that the question is not arguable, and that discussion must be closured without learning the experience of the five years' working of the Department, and without even waiting to see their own Committee's Report. In conclusion, he predicts that the Report will not be lost upon the Irish public, nor will the agricultural community in Ireland long be content to forego Sir Horace Plunkett's services. We sincerely trust these predictions may be ful- filled. In the meantime it is to be hoped that Sir Horace Plunkett will 'not be allowed to surrender his office without some informal recognition of the disinterested and unre- munerated services be has rendered his country.
Previous page
