206 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



have to make up the moiety from which 

 farmers and landowners are exempted on agri- 

 cultural land. 



At any rate, we have to admit that unsound 

 political economy has achieved an undoubted 

 success, whilst in our own island the Housing 

 Acts applied to rural districts and based on 

 '* sound economics " have made no headway at 

 all, — have been, indeed, a pathetic failure. 



One criticism I may make against Irish 

 cottages, whether these be the new homes of 

 migrants or of labourers, is their appalling 

 ugliness. Beauty should be the handmaid of 

 Simplicity, but in Ireland Simplicity serves at 

 the altar of Ugliness. The Celtic renaissance 

 in literature and in art might surely express 

 itself more fittingly with the stones of the 

 field. 



To sum up, I might venture to quote the 

 words I wrote in the London Magazine^ June 

 1910. " An economic revolution is daily taking 

 place in Ireland. So peacefully is it working 

 to its predestined goal that many people are 

 unaware of the wonderful work it is doing in 

 the creation of a new Ireland. At the bottom 

 of that seethmg turmoil, known as the Home 

 Rule agitation, always lay this basic factor — 



