damning exposure that it cannot be revived for another
generation. The Separatist party will be perforce compelled to wait
until the people have forgotten what Home Rule really means.
Therefore, to work again! Useless to waste more time. Ulster will
sleep with one eye open, bearing in mind the favourite Northern saying
which advises men to put their trust in Providence, but to keep their
powder dry. For, like the Achilese, they believe that prayer is
effective in shaving, only the Ulstermen prefer to pray over a keen
razor. A genial citizen of Armagh said:--

"We would be as ready for Home Rule as any other Irishmen if it meant
what we are asked to believe it means. But we know better. We are
convinced that it will bring, not prosperity and peace, but bankruptcy
and war, intolerance and social retrogression, robbery and spoliation,
not only of the landlord but also of everybody else who has anything.
The propertied Roman Catholics are just as dead against Home Rule as
any Protestants. Only they dare not say so.

"England ought to have sense enough to see that instead of freedom
from Irish difficulties, the old grievances will be intensified, and
any bill whatever will at once generate a fresh series of
complications, so that the English Parliament will be crippled in
perpetuity, to the detriment of British interests. The Empire, as a
whole, must be weakened, because the Irish masses are most unfriendly,
and the more England concedes the more unfriendly Ireland becomes. For
Ireland regards all concessions as being wrung from England by
superior force and skill, and as being, in short, the fruits of
compulsion. Therefore, the more Ireland gets the more exacting she
will always become. Ask any Englishman or Scotsman resident in Ireland
if the Irish masses are friendly, and everyone will laugh at you. The
English Home Rule party say, 'Just so. Let us cure this. This is the
principal argument for Home Rule.' They think this sounds very fine.
Just as if in private life, a man to whom you have given his due, and
more than his due, should continue to abuse you, while you strain
every nerve to satisfy him, and go out of your way to obtain peace and
quietness, he all the time becoming more and more exacting and more
and more discontented. And then as if you were to say, 'I must
continue my concessions, my efforts, my sacrifices. I _must_ contrive
to satisfy this amiable person.' What a fool any man would be to adopt
such a cou