in America, and their
native cuteness conies out in trade with surprising results. The Irish
race make a splendid mixture, but you must not take them neat. I am
looked upon as a monster when I say, Let them go. I think it would be
best. Let them clear out of the country, and leave it to people who
can make it pay. Let Ireland be populated by Englishmen or Scotsmen,
or both, and in twenty years the country would be one of the most
prosperous in the world. Those are my opinions, and few Irishmen will
gainsay them. They think them cruel, but their truth is generally
admitted. Mr. Balfour has helped the people, and in a way which was
best calculated to put them permanently on their feet. All to no
purpose. You can't go on making lines that will not pay. You can't go
on doling out charity for ever. Take the boats, nets, and so on, given
to the congested districts. When those are gone you may give them
more. The people will be exactly where they were. A few have been
taught fishing, you say. But it will not spread. Those who have
learned the art have been taught almost by compulsion, and at the
first opportunity they will fall back into their own ways. The farmers
will not change their methods. If one among them did so he would be a
mark for derision. No Irish villager has the pluck to say, I will do
this or that because it is the best thing to do. He must do as the
others do, even to planting his farm, selling the produce, and also in
disposing of the proceeds. Nowhere is public opinion so powerful, so
tyrannical, or so injuriously conservative as in Ireland. I challenge
contradiction. Any intelligent Irishman who has lived in an
agricultural and Roman Catholic neighbourhood will admit every
statement I have made."

Later in the day I laid these observations before three Irish
gentlemen dining at the Mulranney Hotel. All three readily and fully
concurred, and there can be no doubt that these sentiments will be
unanimously confirmed by any competent tribunal in or out of Ireland,
Such being the case, the absurdity of the Home Rule agitation becomes
evident at once.

At last the sportive young engine whose playfulness and prankishness
were mentioned in my last, came whinnying up, harnessed to an empty
truck in which was a bench with a green cloth, emblematic of Ireland.
This was better than convulsively clinging to the engine while she
madly careered along narrow and dizzy precipices, every kick
threatening to be your last