o buy farms, and after having
wandered in vain over Ireland were fain to go back to the States,
being unable to purchase even at a fancy price. They have been told
this by persons in whom they had implicit trust, and I am sure they
believed it. A fairly educated man, who had travelled, and from whom I
expected better things, has since assured me that the stories about
compulsory closing of mines and quarries had been dinned into him from
infancy, and that he was of opinion that these assertions were well
founded, and that they could not be successfully contradicted.
Everywhere the same story of English selfishness and oppression. He
cited a case in point. "Twenty years ago there was a silver mine in
Kinvarra. It gave a lot of employment to the people of those parts,
and was a grand thing for the country at large. The Government stepped
in and closed it. I'm towld by them I can believe that 'twas done to
keep us poor, so that they could manage us, because we'd not be able
to resist oppression and tyranny, we'd be that pauperised. England
does everything to keep us down. They have the police and the soldiers
everywhere to watch us that we'd get no money at all. So when they see
us starting a factory, or a fishery, or opening a mine or a quarry,
the word comes down to stop it, and if we'd say No, this is our own
country, and we'll do what we like in it, they'd shoot us down, and we
couldn't help ourselves. I'm not sayin' that I want Home Rule or
anything fanciful just for mere sentiment. We only want our own, and
Home Rule will give us our own."

The Home Rule party, the Nationalist patriots who know full well the
falsity of these and such-like beliefs, are responsible for this
invincible ignorance. Hatred and distrust of England are the staple of
their teachings, which the credulous peasantry imbibe like mother's
milk. The peripatetic patriots who invade the rural communities seem
to be easy, extemporaneous liars, having a natural gift for
tergiversation, an undeniable gift for mendacity, an inexhaustible
fertility of invention. Such liars, like poets, are born, not made,
though doubtless their natural gifts have been improved and developed
by constant practice. Like Parolles, they "lie with such volubility
that you would think Truth were a fool." The seed has been
industriously sown, and John Bull is reaping the harvest. Is there no
means of enlightenment available? Is there no antidote to this poison?
I am disposed to