once give to your enemies control over the resources of
the country, and you would find the task of reconquest much more
arduous than you think. The fact that England's distress would be
Ireland's opportunity has been so often insisted upon, both by
Unionists and the Nationalists themselves, that I need say nothing on
this point, which, besides, is so obvious as to be in itself a
sufficient answer to the Home Rule agitation under present
circumstances. But even supposing that you had no Eastern and European
difficulty--and we know not from one moment to another when war may
break out--supposing you only had Ireland to reconquer, do you think
this an agreeable prospect? Do you think that reconquest would settle
the Irish question? Do you believe that the shooting of a few hundred
patriots by the British Grenadiers would further what they call the
Union of Hearts?

"These followers of Mr. Gladstone who say, 'Let them have Home Rule to
quiet the country, to relieve the House from the endless discussion of
the Irish Question so that we can proceed with the disestablishment of
the Church, the Local Option Bill, and the thousand-and-one other fads
for which English Home Rulers have sold themselves'--the men who say
this, and who also say 'If they kick over the traces we can instantly
tighten the reins and reduce them to order,' surely these folks cannot
be aware that the Gladstone-Morley Government is unable to give
Strachan, of Tuam, the land which he has bought and paid for in the
Land Courts. The British Government cannot collect the rents of
Colonel O'Callaghan, of Bodyke; nor can it prevent the daily cases of
moonlighting and outrage which are so carefully hushed up, and which
hardly ever get into Irish newspapers. When the British Government
cannot make a few farmers either pay their rent or leave the land, the
said Government having control over the police and civil officers of
the law, how is it going to collect the purchase money of the farms,
in the form of rent, when it has not this control?

"The new police will be in the hands of a Parliament, elected by these
very farmers, who, so to speak, have tasted blood, have ceased to make
efforts to pay rent, have been encouraged in their refusal to pay by
the very men Mr. Gladstone proposes to entrust with the whole concern!
Will these farmers suddenly turn round and say, 'We declined to pay
when English rule would have forced payment, we shall be delighted to
pay when