ng
he tries to cook a piece of scanty food over the scanty flame of a
brazier in the mud, he perhaps sits down for a few minutes in the
day's dawn and takes up an old newspaper, and finds speeches and
leading articles from time to time which tell him that apparently
everything is going wrong, that the Ministers who are at the head
of affairs in this country, upon whom he is depending, are not
really men with their hearts in the work, but are really more or
less callous and calculating mercenaries, who are not directing
affairs in the best way, but are simply anxious to maintain their
own salaries. I say that when speeches and articles of that kind
are found in the newspapers they are calculated, if anything is or
can be so calculated, to depress the men who are at the front."

Then came a few words in praise of the Irish troops and in deprecation
of the failure to recognize some of their services; a confident
assurance that, "whether they are remembered or not," the Sixteenth
Division would do their duty, with an equal assurance that the Ulster
men would do as well as they--and he reached to his conclusion:

"Since I went out there I found that the common salutation in all
circumstances is one of cheer. If things go pretty well and the men
are fairly comfortable, they say 'Cheer O!' If things go badly, and
the snow falls and the rain comes through the roof of a billet in
an impossible sort of cow-house, they say 'Cheer O!' still more.
All we want out there is that you shall adopt the same tone and say
'Cheer O!' to us."

It is not too much to say that this speech was received with a cry of
gratitude all over the country and throughout the Army. It said what
badly needed to be said, and said it with a freshness and a dash that
came superbly from a company commander in his fifty-fourth year. It was
the best service that had yet been rendered to John Redmond's policy.
Everybody quite naturally and simply accepted the Nationalist Irishman
as the spokesman for all the troops who were actually in the line. Mr.
Walter Long, always a generous and candid human being, was quick to give
voice to this feeling:

"The honourable and gallant member for East Clare has been in
conflict, not only with one particular political party, but during
the greater part of his career with every party in turn, and has
engaged in bi