ity of working at all. You chuck us a
crust just as you would chuck a bone to a dog, and then you want us to
go down on our knees and pour blessings on Balfour's head. We're tired
of such stuff; but, thank God, we shall soon have things in our own
hands. All these men are small farmers, or small farmers' sons. They
can't get a living out of the land, and they are obliged to come to
this. Bullied and driven from week's end to week's end, they are the
very picture of starvation. A shame and disgrace to the English
Government."

I may as well say at once that all this proved to be untrue. No doubt
the Galway Home Rulers invent and circulate these falsehoods to
discount the effect of the good work of a Conservative Government, and
it is, therefore, well that the facts should be placed on record. I
pushed on to a cutting where fifty men were busily engaged in loading
earth into trucks, having first dug it from a great bank of gravelly
soil. An Irish ganger walked to and fro along the top, keeping his eye
on the men, and occasionally shouting in an excited tone. But he was
not swearing at, or otherwise abusing, the men, who were as fine a
company of peasants as you could see anywhere, well-built, well-grown,
and muscular. Not a trace of starvation, but, on the contrary, a
well-fed, well-nourished look. The ganger, Sullivan, seemed
good-tempered enough, only shouting to let off his superfluous
vitality. He used no bad language. "Cheer up, my lads," he cried. "In
wid the dirt. Look alive, look alive, look alive. Whirroo! Shove it
up, my lads, shove it up. Away ye go. Look out for that fall of earth.
There she goes. Whirroo!" English navvies would have preferred
silence, would have requested him to hold his condemned jaw, would
have spent some breath in applying an explosive mining term to his
eyes, but these Irish labourers seemed to understand their superior
officer, and to cheerfully accept the situation. Mr. Sullivan was
civil and good-humoured. "These are a picked lot. Splendid set of
fellows, and good workers. No, they do not walk for miles before they
reach their work. The engine runs along the line to pick them up in
the morning, and to drop them again in the evening. They have
half-an-hour for dinner, and half-an-hour for tea. They get about
fifteen shillings a week. Boys get less, but thirteen shillings and
sixpence is the very bottom. Rubbish about low wages. Nine bob a week
is the regular farmer's wage, and these me