And the
mere naked enumeration of them is sufficient to show that such an
Assembly will have ample matter of economic development upon which to
keep its teeth polished without devouring either priests or
Protestants.
There are other urgent questions upon which unanimity exists even at
present, for example Poor Law Reform. I have outlined in an earlier
chapter the honourable record of Ireland in this regard. We were agreed
in 1836 that the workhouse should never have come; we are now agreed
that it must go. Whether in Antrim or in Clare, the same vicious system
has produced the same vicious results. Uniform experience has issued in
unanimous agreement as to the lines upon which reform ought to proceed.
At the same time there are differences as to detail, and the task of
fusing together various views and hammering out of them a workable Bill
will be an ideal task for a representative assembly. But it is difficult
to believe that the discussion will be, in all particulars, governed
either by the Council of Trent, or by the Westminster Confession.
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