three rose and received the toast with enthusiasm, waving their
handkerchiefs and showing an amount of warmth that was most gratifying
to me. I need not tell you that an average Home Rule audience would
not have accepted the toast at all. This shows you the feeling of the
most intelligent Catholics. The people of education and property are
loyal. It shows also that they are opposed to Home Rule."

"But if the best Catholics are opposed to Home Rule, why don't they
say so publicly?"

"A fair question, which shall have a precise answer. But first, we
must go back to Mr. Balfour's great Land Act, and the lowering of the
franchise, and observe the effect of these two enactments.

"The people were at one time terribly ill-used. That is all over now,
but the memory still rankles. The Irish are great people for
tradition. The landlords have for ages been the traditional embodiment
of tyranny and religious ascendency. The Irish people have long
memories, very long memories. Englishmen would say: 'No matter what
happened to my great-grandfather; I am treated well, and that is
enough for me.' Irishmen still go harping on the landlord, although he
no longer has any power. The terrible history of the former
relationship between landlord and tenant is still kept up and
remembered, and will be remembered for ages, if not for ever.
Presently you will see the bearing of all this on your question--Why
do not the best Catholics come forward and speak against Home Rule?

"When the franchise was lowered the rebound from repression was
tremendous, like a powerful spring that has been held down, or like an
explosive which is the more destructive in proportion as it is more
confined. People newly made free go to the opposite extreme.
Emancipate a serf and he becomes insolent, he does not know how to use
his freedom, and becomes violent. The great majority of the people are
smarting from the old land laws, which have left a bitter animosity
against English rule, which is popularly denounced as being
responsible for them.

"To speak against Home Rule is to associate yourself with the worst
aspects of the land question. The bulk of the people are incapable of
making a distinction. And while they entertain some respect for a
Protestant opponent, they are irreconcilable with Unionist Catholics,
just as the English Gladstonians have a far more virulent dislike for
the Liberal Unionists than for the rankest Tories. They say to the
Protestants,