show this if impartially looked into. Pity the English do not come
over here more than they do. The people get along famously with
individual Englishmen, and sometimes they wonder where all the
murdering villains are of whom they hear from their spiritual and
political advisers. A priest said in my hearing, 'Only the best men
come over here. They are picked out to impose on you.' And the poor
folks believed him. We want to know each other better. The English are
just as ignorant as the Irish, in a way. They know no more of the
Irish than the Irish know of them. The poor folks of Connaught firmly
believe that they would be well off and able to save money but for the
English that ruin the country. And here this Jute Bag Company is
bursted up because it had not capital to carry on with. Belfast men or
Englishmen would have made it a big success. It stopped because it
could not raise enough money to buy a ship-load of jute, and was
obliged to buy from hand to mouth from retailers.

"Take the wool trade. Everywhere over Ireland you will see Wool, Wool
in big letters on placards for the farmers--notices of one sort or
another. We are the centre of a wool district. Not a single wool
factory, although the town is in every way fitted for excelling in the
woollen trade. We have a grand river, and the people understand wool.
They card and spin, and make home-made shawls and coat-pieces at their
own homes, just for themselves, and there they stop. They are waiting
for Home Rule, they say. Pass the bill, and factories will jump out of
the ground like mushrooms. Instead of taking advantage of the means at
their disposal, they are looking forward to a speculative something
which they cannot define. The English are the cause of any trouble
they may have, and an Irish Parliament will totally change the aspect
of things. Everybody is going to be well off, and with little or no
work. The farmers are going to get the land for nothing, or next to
nothing, and all heretics will be sent out of the country, or kept
down and in their proper place."

Thus spake a well-to-do Protestant, born in Galway some sixty years
ago, a half-breed Irish and Scotchman. I have now heard so many
exasperating variations of this same tune, that I should be disposed,
had I the power, to take a deep and desperate revenge by granting the
grumblers Home Rule on the spot. It would doubtless serve them right,
but England has also herself to consider.

Galway Town,