phrase, neither do they profess to look forward to friendliness
with England. I have conversed with hundreds of Home Rulers, and all
looked upon the bill as a means of paying off old scores. The tone of
the Nationalist press should be enough for sensible Englishmen. Nobody
who regularly reads the leading Irish Separatist papers can ever
believe in the friendship supposed to be the inevitable result of the
proposed concession. Once the present agitation is crowned with
success, a tenfold more powerful agitation will at once arise. The
Irish people will have more grievances than ever. Already they are
complaining of insult and betrayal. And their reproaches are directed
against the G.O.M. and his accomplices, or rather against Mr.
Gladstone and Mr. Morley, for they know as well as Englishmen know
that the rest count for nothing; that, in fact, they resemble the
faithful and unsophisticated baa-baa of whom we heard in our early
infancy. "Mary had a little lamb, Whose fleece was white as snow, And
everywhere that Mary went, The lamb was sure to go." This is the
attitude of the English Gladstonian party, and the Irish people know
it. A Home Ruler I met to-day disavowed loyalty except to Ireland, and
asked what was the Queen and the rest of the British Royal pauper
party to him or to Ireland that he should be loyal? He said:--

"All interest is over here, whether among Nationalists or Unionist.
The fate of the bill affects us no longer. The new financial proposals
are the last straw that breaks the camel's back. Where is the
managing of our own affairs? Where does the Nationalism come in? And
Gladstone, in allowing himself to make in the first proposal a mistake
of one thousand pounds a day, damaged his prestige as the framer of
the bill, and fatally damaged the bill itself. Anybody can now say
that if he was so grossly mistaken in an ascertainable matter like
revenue and figures he stands to be equally wrong (at least) in
matters which are not demonstrable, but which are at present only
matters of opinion and argument. I am not sure that he ever intended
to give us any Home Rule at all. We are being fooled because we have
no leader. The bill, as it stood at first, would never have been
prepared for a man like Parnell. Gladstone dare not have done it. The
whole bill is a series of insults. As a reasonable, fair-minded man
you will not deny that. It purports to come from friends who confide
in us, and yet every line bristles w