nel says the same thing. Says he: 'Beloved brethren, I greet
you. I fall on your neck and kiss your two ears, and give you all you
ask. For why, beloved brethren? Why do I this thing. Let us in a
spirit of love enquire. Because it is the wish of the country; because
it is the aspiration of the people; because I feel a deep-seated,
internal affection for your beautiful land, in whose affairs, during
my eighty-four years' pilgrimage in this vale of tears, I have, as you
know, always shown the strongest, the warmest, the most passionate
interest, and on whose lovely shores I have during my seven dozen
years spent (altogether) nearly a week. It has been said that I have
never been in Ulster, and that, therefore, I am unable to appreciate
the situation. An atrocious falsehood. I have spent two hours (nearly)
in the northern province, having landed from Sir Somebody's yacht to
see the Giant's Causeway. I have studied the Irish question by means
of mineral specimens gathered from the four provinces, and I am,
therefore, competent to settle the Irish question for ever. Do you
know a greater man than myself? I confess I don't. Bless you, my
children. You ask for Home Rule. Enough. The fact that you ask proves
a Divine right to have what you ask for. You are a people rightly
struggling to be free,' says owld Gladstone. 'Hell to my sowl,' says
he, 'but that's what ye are,' says he.

"And he starts to murder us by giving what the most ignorant,
unthinking, unpatriotic, self-seeking people in the country have asked
for, and swears that because they ask they must have.

"As well give a razor to a baby that cried for it.

"Ireland must be treated as an infant.

"An Irish Legislature would lead to untold miseries. We might arrive
there some day, but not at a jump. The change is too sudden. We want a
little training. We want to grow, and growth is a thing that cannot be
forced. It takes time. Give us time for heaven's sake. Give us Home
Rule, but also give us time. Give us milk, then fish, then perhaps a
chop, and then, as we grow strong, beefsteak and onions. A word in
your ear. This is certain truth, you can go Nap on it. Tell the
English people that the people are getting sick of agitation, that
they want peace and quietness, that they are losing faith in
agitators, having before them a considerable stretch of history,
which, notwithstanding the scattered population, is filtering down
into the minds of the people, with its morals