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There is the Irish question... Underneath the surface of this, and wrapped up in it, are nearly all the controversies of principle which will agitate the political atmosphere for our time. It is a microcosm of the whole imperial question. It is the test of our fitness to deal with the other problems which modern circumstance, pressing hard against the old order of ideas and traditions, is forcing upon our attention. The functions of the State, the duties of property, the rights of labour, the question whether the many are born for the few, the question of a centralised imperial power, the question of the pre-eminence of morals in politics—all these things lie in Irish affairs. (en) |
