nday they get their
instructions. They keep up the cry of distress when there is no
distress, for fear of breaking through the custom. They have been
helped on all sides, but they will not utilise their advantages. The
sea is before them, swarming with fish, which they will not catch.
They said, we have no pier, no quay. They were set up with these and
everything they needed. What did they do with them? Nothing at all.
The work is falling to pieces and they let it go. They sometimes go
out in coraghs, and catch enough fish for the day's food, but that is
all. They don't pay their rents, and their rents would amuse you.
Twenty-five shillings a year for a decent house and a good piece of
land is reckoned a heavy responsibility. One man I know named McGreal
has twenty acres of good land and a house for seventeen shillings and
sixpence a year. They will not sell you butter, they will not sell you
milk. They say they want it for themselves. None of them has ever paid
a cent for fuel. All have turf for the digging, and much of the Achil
turf is equal to coal. The sea is in front of them, and all round
them, and the lakes are full of fish. And yet the hat is sent round
every other year.

"They used to pay their debts. Now they will pay nothing, and their
audacity is something wonderful. A gentleman over there has bought
some land, and the people turn their cattle on it to graze. He
remonstrates, and they say, 'What business have you here? Keep in your
own country.' He sued them for damages. They had nothing but the
cattle aforesaid, and, as he could not find heart to seize, he had no
remedy. They keep their cattle on his land, although he has, since
then, processed them for trespass. They have already divided the
spoils of the Protestants; that is, in theory. They are anticipating
the Home Rule Bill in their disposal of the land. They have marked out
the patches they will severally claim, and are already disputing the
future possession of certain desirable fields.

"English Gladstonians ridicule the fears of Irish Protestants, who
declare unanimously their conviction that Home Rule means oppression.
This ridicule is absurd in face of the fact that every Protestant
sect, without exception, has publicly and formally announced its
adherence to this opinion. The Church of Ireland believes in Catholic
intolerance; the Methodists believe it; the Baptists believe it; the
Plymouth Brethren believe it; the Presbyterians believe it; t