ists, and
unconsciously put his finger on the real incentive when he said:--"The
landlords will be wronged under the present bill. It is a bad bill, an
unjust bill, and will do more harm than good. England should have a
voice in fixing the price of the land, for if the matter be left to
the Irish Parliament gross injustice will be done. The tenants were
buying their land, aided by the English loans, for they found that
their two-and-three-quarter per cent. interest came lower than their
rent. But they have quite ceased to buy, because they expect the Irish
Legislature to give them even better terms--or even to get the land
for nothing." Patriotism had meanwhile received another sop. Mr. Healy
advised the farmers to think twice before they bought their land, and
hinted that their patience was likely to be well rewarded. Father J.
Corcoran at Mullahoran, when consulted by a body of tenant farmers
whose landlord offered to sell, distinctly advised them not to
purchase, and gave a practical instruction on the subject, in which he
endeavoured to prove that seventeen or eighteen years' purchase was at
present unworthy of consideration, and advising the greatest caution
in buying at all under present circumstances. The farmers' conception
of Nationalism is plunder and confiscation. They vote for Home Rule
because they thereby expect to make money, to become freeholders,
landlords themselves, in short. They are taught that they have an
inherent right to the land, and that an Irish Parliament will restore
them their own. Father B. O'Hagan, addressing a meeting in company
with William O'Brien, said:--"We have two classes of landlords, in
brief. We have the royal scoundrels who took the land of our
forefathers. I ask any of those noble ruffians to show me the title by
which they lay claim to the soil of my ancestors. Then we have the
landlords who have purchased their estates in the Land Courts. But
they bought stolen goods, and they knew that the land was stolen. We
must get rid of the landlords." Paddy is perfectly safe. The landlords
who claim in descent and those who buy in the open market are equally
denounced. Let him support the Nationalist party, and the land becomes
his own. He does so, and his motive is by the unthinking called
patriotism and by Mr. Gladstone the Aspirations of a People.

There are of course other classes of Nationalists, but in comparison
with the immense preponderance of rural voters they do not count