provided there were a
reasonable chance of success. It has never occurred to me to consider
acquiescence to the Government of England as a moral obligation or as
other than a dire necessity. We have never, thank God, lied to our
oppressors by saying we were loyal to them. And when we have condemned
the rebels whose heroism and self-sacrifice we have loved and wept
over, we condemned not their want of loyalty, but their want of
prudence. We thought it wrong to plunge the land into the horrors of
war with no hope of success."

So much for our trusty and well-beloved fellow-subjects of this realm
of England. Father Ryan is candid, truthful, and outspoken, and
commands respect. Better an open enemy than a false friend. His
summing-up of Irish feeling to England is both concise and accurate,
but one of his sentences is hardly up to date. He thanks God that the
Irish have never lied by saying they were loyal. How many Irish
members can make this their boast? Compared with them, the Ribbonmen
were heroes. The glorious prototypes of the modern member murdered
their foes themselves, did their slaughtering in person, and took the
risk like men. They hated Englishmen, _qua_ Englishmen, and made no
secret of it. The modern method is easier and more convenient. To
murder by proxy, to have your hints carried out without danger to
yourself, and to draw pay for your hinting, is a triumph of
nineteenth-century ingenuity. To pose as loyal subjects and to disarm
suspicion by protestations of friendship and brotherly love may be a
more effective means of attaining your end, but it smacks too much of
the serpent. The Ribbonmen were rough and rugged, but comparatively
respectable. The Irish Separatists are just as disloyal, and
infinitely more treacherous. The parchment "loyalty to Her Most
Gracious Majesty the Queen," which Lord Houghton is in some places
receiving, is revolting to all who know the truth. The snake has
succeeded the tiger, and most people hate sliminess. Nationalist
Ireland is intensely disloyal from side to side, and from end to end.
Disloyal and inimical she has been from the first, and disloyal and
inimical she remains, and no concessions can change her character. She
is religious with a mediaeval faith, and she follows her spiritual
guides, whose sole aim is religious ascendancy. So long as the Roman
Catholic Church is not predominant so long the Irish people will
complain. You may give them the land for nothing; you