acts securing to farmers fair rents and fixity of tenure, the wise
and salutary measures making possible the transfer of land from landlord
to tenant, facilities for education at popular universities, the
laborers' acts and many others. They are a practical party taking what
they could get, and because they could show ostensible results they have
had a greater following in Ireland than any other party. This is natural
because the average man in all countries is a realist. But this reliance
on material results to secure support meant that they must always show
results, or the minds of their countrymen veered to those ultimates
and fundamentals which await settlement here as they do in all
civilizations. As in the race with Atalanta the golden apples had to be
thrown in order to win the race. The intellect of Ireland is now fixed
on fundamentals, and the compromise this middle party is able to offer
does not make provision for the ideals of either of the extremists, and
indeed meets little favor anywhere in a country excited by recent
events in world history, where revolutionary changes are expected and a
settlement far more in accord with fundamental principles.

6. It is possible that many of the rank and file of these parties will
not at first agree with the portraits painted of their opponents, and
that is because the special pleaders of the press, who in Ireland are,
as a rule, allowed little freedom to state private convictions, have
come to regard themselves as barristers paid to conduct a case, and have
acquired the habit of isolating particular events, the hasty speech or
violent action of individuals in localities, and of exhibiting these as
indicating the whole character of the party attacked. They misrepresent
Irishmen to each other. The Ulster advocates of the Union, for example,
are accustomed to hear from their advisers that the favorite employment
of Irish farmers in the three southern provinces is cattle driving, if
not worse. They are told that Protestants in these provinces live in
fear of their lives, whereas anybody who has knowledge of the true
conditions knows that, so far from being riotous and unbusinesslike,
the farmers in these provinces have developed a net-work of rural
associations, dairies, bacon factories, agricultural and poultry
societies, etc., doing their business efficiently, applying the
teachings of science in their factories, competing in quality of output
with the very best of the