With the thundering of cannons, the Irish ghost which, since the eighteenth century, has constantly kept the rulers of England on the trot, has been ceremoniously buried. The Irish question, a question that could endanger England's position towards the outside, has come to an end… After the great agrarian reform, the Catholic population of Ireland no longer consists of malcontent hungry people but of small farmers with peaceful conservative leanings… The Irish peasantry abandoned the banner of the fight for independence, when its economic interests were no longer in conflict with the English government. It contented itself with the fight for self-government. Tragically enough, the Sinn Féiners – being petty bourgeois – didn't understand that but lulled themselves to sleep with nationalistic dreams…