tended to promote measures having for their object an increase in the
material prosperity of the country; that if we could thereby kill Home
Rule with kindness, so much the better; but that the policy stood on its
own merits, irrespective of any ulterior consequences.

In my view that is the only true attitude for a Unionist Government to
take up. But in our efforts to improve material conditions and to remove
grievances, how small is the encouragement or help that we have received
from leaders of the Nationalist Party! "Their aim," said Goldwin Smith
long ago, "has always been to create a Nationalist feeling, which would
end in political separation, not the redress of particular wrongs and
grievances, or the introduction of practical improvements." I should
imagine that there has seldom, if ever, been an important political
party which has exhibited so little constructive ability as the Irish
Parliamentarians. Their own legislative proposals during the last thirty
years have been a negligible quantity; and I think I am justified in
saying that there is not one of the great measures passed by Unionist
Governments since 1886 which has not been either opposed by the
accredited leaders of the Party, or, at best, received with carping and
futile, rather than helpful, criticism. I must personally
acknowledge--and I do so gladly--that I received useful assistance and
valuable criticism from the Messrs. Healy in conducting the Local
Government Bill through the House of Commons; and credit must also be
given to Mr. John Redmond for the part he took in aiding to bring
together the Recess Committee. But the Messrs. Healy have always acted
independently; and Mr. John Redmond was, at the time referred to, leader
of only a small minority of the Irish Nationalists. The feeling of the
majority, and certainly of the leaders of the majority, was reflected,
as we have seen, in the refusal of Mr. Justin McCarthy to have anything
to do with the movement.

Mr. Dillon in particular has shown a disposition to regard minor
political grievances, and even poverty and discontent, as so much fuel
wherewith to stoke the lagging engine of Home Rule. Remedial measures
short of Home Rule seem to take in his eyes the character of attempts to
deprive the Irish Party of so many valuable assets. Nor is this spirit
of tacit or open hostility confined to acts of the legislature. Of all
the social and economic movements in Ireland during recent years, the
s