hat I have no business in the
country. Wherever English and Scots settlers have been located, there
the country is well worked and the people are thriving. If we can
thrive, why can't they thrive? If we can get on without Home Rule, why
can't they get on without Home Rule? If it were going to be a good
thing for the country we'd all be on it like a shot. If it were good
for them, it ought to be good for us. We have shown by our success
that our judgment is sound. Their failure in everything they
undertake, their dirt, their general habits and character, should
cause their statements and opinions to be looked upon with very great
suspicion. Does it stand to reason that merely by Home Rule, by the
exercise of the privilege of making Irish laws by Irishmen in Dublin,
that these people would gain all we have attained by hard and honest
labour? That is what they expect up here.

"The Catholics are our servants, and in selecting them we seldom ask
their religion. Our employes in most cases expect by the bill to take
the place of their masters. That is their conception of Home Rule.
They have been told from infancy that the British Government keeps
them down because of their religion. They know that the British
Government is Protestant, and they believe that in some occult way the
superior position held by the Protestants in Ireland is due to
favouritism. Under a Home Rule Parliament, that is, a Catholic
Parliament, this condition of things will be reversed, and they will
at once, and by their own innate force, as faithful believers, spring
to the top of the tree, and exchange positions with their former
masters and mistresses."

The general effect of my friend's discourse was well summed up by Mr.
James Mack, of Galway, who said:--

"When I see that the Belfast men who would make fortunes out of river
mud, and who would skin a flea for his hide and tallow, turn their
backs on Home Rule, and declare they will have nothing to do with it,
I feel sure it can be no good. Then my own experience and observation
assure me that, instead of a settlement, it will only be the beginning
of trouble for both countries. Firmness is wanted, and equal laws for
all. At present everything is in favour of Ireland." _United Ireland_
says:--"It would be better to go on for twenty years in the old
miserable mill-horse round of futile and feverish and wasting
agitation than to accept this bill as a settlement of national claims.
And if the bill p