A Study in Congestion 201 



to fall, unless the efficiency of the farmer can be 

 raised to the level of the beast, which is out of 

 the question, since all Governments avoid the 

 education question as a matter too dangerous 

 for Government. If Government touched educa- 

 tion to raise efficiency, the peasant might soon 

 find a way to do things for himself ; but in that 

 case, the Anglo-Roman conspiracy might attack 

 the Government, which would impede the policy 

 laid down for all future Governments by the late 

 Lord Randolph Churchill. For the peasants, 

 there is no self-dependence without efficiency, 

 and there is no efficiency without education ; but 

 education is controlled by those who keep " the 

 moral centre of gravity fixed in a future existence " 

 where no notice is taken of our fence or the kind 

 of land on either side of it. To get our peasant 

 over that fence will require a regiment of soldiers. 

 ' So far we have "cured" congestion honestly,^but 

 without success, and now it remains to find some 

 other way. The United Irish League may have 

 been guilty of unusual oversight in permitting 

 land to reach near its honest price on the Abercorn 

 estate, but such negligence may not occur again, 

 especially under a Home Rule Government, and 

 in a problem of such difficulty, let us grasp at 

 any hope we can. With a sufficiently close under- 

 standing between the Chief Secretary and the 

 organisers of agrarian crime, there is no reason 

 why the price of tenant's interest in grass land 

 should not be brought down from eighteen 

 years' purchase to five years' purchase, which is 



