is a fair specimen of the business
management which characterises the breed of Irishmen who favour Home
Rule. The party paper, once a fine property, has in their hands sunk
below zero, and they built New Tipperary on land to which they had no
title; so that the money was completely thrown away. Almost every
Board of Guardians in the country is insolvent, except in those cases
where the Government has kicked out the Poor Law Guardians elected by
the Parish, and restored solvency by sending down paid men to run the
concern for a couple of years. This has been done in several
instances, and in every case the paid men, drawing salaries of several
hundred a year, have in two years paid off debts, leaving all in good
working order, with a balance in the bank. The inference is obvious.
Would the Belfast folks have made such a fiasco of a dock? Would
Englishmen have exposed themselves to the ridicule of a story which is
curiously remindful of Robinson Crusoe and his big canoe? Would the
Galway folks ever have built the railway they wanted so badly; or sans
England and Mr. Balfour, would not the Connemara men have proceeded to
starve until the end of time? A keen old railway man who had
thravelled, and who had done railway work in California, said to me,
"Whin we get an Oirish Parlimint the labourers may jist put on their
hats and go over to England. Thank God, we'll know something besides
farm work now, the whole of us. We can get railroad work in England.
There'll be none in Oireland, for every mother's son that has money
will cut the country. I could take ye fourteen Oirish miles from
Galway, along a road that was spotted wid great jintlemen's houses,
an' ivery one of thim's in ruins. The owners that used to live in
them, and be a blessin' to the counthry, is all ruined by the land
agitation. All are gone, an' their foin, splindid houses tumblin'
down, an' the people worse off than iver. If the Bill becomes law the
young men will all be off to England and America. There'll be no work,
no money in the counthry. Did ye hear what the cyar-dhriver said to
Mr. Morley?"

I confessed that the incident escaped my recollection.

"Why the cyar-man was a dacent boy, an Mister Morley axed him how was
thrade, an' av he was busy."

"No," says the dhriver, "things is quite, very quite," says he.

"Ye'll be busy when ye get Home Rule," says Mister Morley.

"But that'll only last a week," says the cyar-man.

"An' why so?" says the Iris