tute
the working capital of the new Parliament, and would therefore be in
the hands of brother "patriots," has been adduced as a fair measure of
patriotic sincerity, and endless minor examples might have been given.
We might have mentioned Delany, the principal clothier and outfitter
of intensely patriotic Limerick, who had not a yard of Irish tweed in
his stores; or the Dungannon folks, who think foul scorn of their own
coal, and persist in buying the English product at double the cost; or
Mr. Timony, of "patriotic Donegal," might have been quoted.
"Irishmen," said the great draper, "will not wear Donegal tweed. But
for England we should have no market at all." The patriots will not
"part." "I'm sorry for you," said the kind old lady. "_How much_ are
you sorry?" said the tramp. Tried by this test, Irish patriotism comes
out very small. If "patriot" members had to live on the voluntary
offerings of their constituencies, the trade would expire of
inanition. The members would return to their bogs, their tripe shops,
their shebeens, and patriotism would become a lost art. Irishmen will
applaud with enthusiasm. They like a red-hot patriotic speech. But,
like the crowd listening to the harp and fiddle at the street corner,
they begin to shuffle off when the bag comes round.

Irish land hunger is easy to understand and simple to define. The bulk
of the population are agricultural, and closely wedded to custom.
Their fathers lived on the land and by the land, and they expect to do
likewise. _Saeva paupertas, et avitus apto cum lare fundus._ Their
ideas of existence are inseparably connected with the land. Whatever
knowledge they have relates to the land. Their farming skill is very
limited; indeed, it may almost be said that they have none beyond that
possessed by savages--but it is their only possession. They have no
turn for mechanics. The rural Irishman is uneducated, and knows little
beyond what he sees around him. So far as his experience goes, to be
without land is to be without the one means of livelihood. The English
small farmer is differently situated. If farming will not pay he has
other resources. He can migrate to fifty towns having factories or
great public works. And besides this, the Saxon is not crippled by an
ignorant conservatism and a congenital inability to adapt himself to
changed circumstances. Paddy is content with little, if he have his
ease. He loves to put in the seed and then to sit down and wait fo