JOHN BULL'S OTHER ISLAND. 18.5 



a barrier against socialism which will last, I 

 fancy, for a couple of hundred years yet, for 

 an Irish farmer would pour down boiling lead 

 on the emissaries of the State who tried to 

 nationalise his land, the land he sweated sixty 

 years to pay for. There is no fear of socialism 

 in Ireland, There are other and real dangers. 

 There is the danger that without a complete 

 reorganisation of the business methods in 

 rural Ireland it will step back gradually into 

 the old order with a new class of landlords. 

 There is the fear that Michael Mulligan, 

 gombeen-man, and his class will begin gradu- 

 ally to absorb the farmers as their tied 

 customers, and so create a new aristocracy. 

 Indeed, they are already doing this. The old 

 aristocracy swaggered royally to the devil. 

 They borrowed money at 60 per cent to 

 ruin themselves. The new aristocracy, whose 

 coming I dread, have been accustomed to lend 

 money at GO per cent to ruin others. I 

 prefer the former type, though I hope no one 

 will accuse me of unduly exalting it. I believe 

 the alternative habit is the more dangerous of 

 the two, and is less easily got rid of as a 

 family tradition." 



In a congested district such as Ave find near 



