Emergencies 173 



former landowners under the immoral statutes of 

 Westminster ? Then we have another land 

 problem, harder of solution than the last, if not 

 bloodier, and made the more distressing through 

 the funds now " administered " by the Congested 

 Districts Board in fixing congestion instead of 

 relieving it. Under a long elaboration of statutory 

 fraud, dictated by political fallacy and designed to 

 penalise the efficient, we are yearly creating for our 

 children inflictions worse than our own, and at the 

 same time making them still more unfit to bear 

 them. The day of the competent may come, 

 before chaos, and that would solve all our problems, 

 but it can never come while the school remains an 

 instrument to set mind against muscle and man 

 against his normal destiny. There is hardly an 

 Irish problem that has not its secret in the school, 

 and the school has its secret far from Ireland, and 

 entrenched in a garrison which could not be 

 successfully assaulted by anything less than a 

 combination of King Henry VIII. and Mr. John 

 Dillon. 



