many of his points were too
technical for the general reader. He said:--"Absurd to ask what an
Irish Parliament _will_ do, because we know the tendencies of the
present men. We must ask what it _can_ do, for it is certain that its
members will from time to time be replaced by men of more 'advanced'
opinions. Appetite grows by what it feeds on, and the Irish people
want to pose as an independent nation. Englishmen and Scotchmen say
Ireland would never be so foolish, and I am not surprised that they
should say this. But when did Irishmen act on the lines of Englishmen
or Scotchmen? They never did; they never will. The peoples are
actuated by entirely different motives. Englishmen look at what is
going to pay. They act on whatever basis promises the most
substantial return. Irishmen are swayed by sentiment."

Here I remembered a remark of Father McPhilpin, parish priest of
Kilronane, Aran Isles. He said:--"The Irish people act more for fancy
and less for money than any nation on earth. The poorest classes have
less sentiment than the middle classes. They are too closely engaged
in securing a livelihood. But the great difficulty of the English in
managing the Irish lies in the fact that the English people work on
strictly business principles, and that the Irish do not. The English
people do not at all understand the Irish; and the reason is perfectly
clear to me. They do not appreciate the extent to which mere sentiment
will move the Irish race, mere sentiment, as opposed to what you would
call business principles."

Returning to my barrister. He continued:--"The Dublin bar has
decided--has formally decided--that so far as the action of the
Executive is concerned the Irish Parliament will be a supreme and
irresponsible body. The action of its officers will not be in any way
subject to the review of the English Government. What does this mean?
Simply that the life, the liberty, the property of every citizen will
be entirely in the hands of the Irish Government. Do the English
people know this? I think not. For if they did know, surely they would
think twice before they committed decent people to the tender mercies
of the inventors and supporters of the Land League, with its ten
thousand stories of outrage and murder."

"Give instances of what they can do, say you? They can refuse police
protection to persons whose lives are in danger from the National
League. And, as you know, scores of persons are at this moment under