FOR PEACE AND WAR. 59 



CHAPTER VII. 



The observations, with which I close the foregoing remarks, 

 must be taken to mean that though the native taste for 

 horse breeding in Irehxnd would be fostered and stimulated 

 to a great extent by the promising and encouraging hopes 

 that a cheap and facile use of desirable sires would give ; 

 nevertheless the changes to which I have pointed in the 

 rural economy of that land, will now largely operate to 

 render numerical returns in horse supply painfully less, at 

 the same time that the quality will be largely improved. 



With very prose facts staring the country in the face, 

 that no logic or sophistry can soundly argue, or fallaciously 

 reason away, regarding our alarming position, and when it 

 has been proved by practical results amongst the great 

 military nations of Europe that Government supervision 

 has been a success where tried, it then no longer becomes 

 a question of principle, but of coin. 



It appears from the report of the " Select Committee," 

 appointed upon Lord Rosebery's motion in the House of 

 Lords, by which it was hoped not only to find out evils but 

 to suggest a remedy for them if discovered, that they did 

 not take into their consideration the influence had upon 

 general horses from which our re-mounts are derived, by the 

 present system of " short-cut " racing with flying cripples, 

 sj^lendid "roarers," and immature youngsters. Nor did 

 they deal in any practical way wnth the cavalry supply 



