Lying and theft, under other names, would be, the dominant
influences under the new _regime_. But it may be objected--If Irishmen
have no respect for their members, why did they elect them? If they
object to Home Rule, why did they vote for it? And so on, and so on.
These queries at first blush seem unanswerable, but they are not
really so. Attentive readers of later letters will discover the reason
why. Further, it may be remarked, in passing, that questions are more
easily asked than answered. Here is an instance. The facts are
undeniable, staring us in the face:--

The base and bloody Balfour, unaccompanied by men who have been called
his black and brutal bloodhounds, moves about in Ireland unmolested,
with no other protection than that of his sister.

The bright and brilliant O'Brien, the purist-patriot, visiting the
constituency of which he is the senior member, is with difficulty
protected by a powerful force of the police he has so often affected
to despise.

Other Nationalist members dare not appear in Nationalist quarters. How
is this?

To return to the objections given above. Since the appearance of the
bill, Irishmen have been changing their minds. Day by day they dread
it more and more. They still believe that under certain conditions
Home Rule would be a good thing for Ireland. But they begin to see
that the required conditions do not exist. They begin to see that they
have been used by such men as O'Brien and Healy, they see the
incompetency which has reduced the party paper to so low an ebb, they
see the misery and degradation which the Land League inflicted on the
once thriving districts of Tipperary; they saw their neighbours, poor,
unlettered men, dupes of unscrupulous lying eloquence, men whom it was
murder to deceive--they saw these men sentenced to long terms of penal
servitude, while the instigators of the crimes for which they had
suffered, availing themselves of the liberal English law, broke their
bail, and, travelling first-class to Paris, lived in the best hotels
of that gay city on the plunder they had wiled from ignorant servant
girls, being clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously
every day, while their friends the felons trod the tireless wheel and
the housemaids went on with their scrubbing.

The Irish people have seen these things and many more, and, as the
French say, they have reflected. A very considerable proportion of the
lower classes have already changed the