hing can be in this world that if
he had not crippled his initiative by sanctioning, under his own hand,
the announcement of the 24-1/2 years' purchase terms for his estate,
he would never have allowed himself to be associated with what he
rather wearily and shamefacedly described as "a short-sighted and
unwise policy."

From the time that Mr Dillon and his friends got control of the Party
and the national organisation the country was never allowed to
exercise an independent judgment of its own, for the simple reason
that the facts were carefully kept from its knowledge by a Press
boycott unparalleled in the history of any other nation. Under this
tyranny all independence and honest conviction were sapped. And with a
brutal irony, which must compel a certain amazed admiration on the
part of the disinterested inquirer after truth, the men who set the
Party pledge at defiance, who set themselves to destroy Party unity
and to scoff at majority rule, were the men who at a later date, when
it suited their malevolent purpose, used the catch-cries of "Unity,"
"Majority Rule" and "Factionists" with all their evil memories of the
nine years of the Split to intimidate the people from listening to the
arguments and reasonings of Mr O'Brien and his friends. And when their
kept Press and their subservient Parliamentarians did not prevail,
they did not hesitate to use hired revolver gangs and to employ paid
emissaries to prevent the gospel of Conciliation from being preached
to the people.

With the entrance of false principles and the employment of pernicious
and demoralising influences the _moral_ of the Party began to be
at first vitiated and then utterly destroyed. It lost its independent
character and cohesive force. To a certain extent it became a party of
petty tale-bearers. The men most in favour with the secret Cabinet
were the men who kept them informed of the sayings and doings of their
fellows.

The members of lesser note simply dare not be seen speaking to anyone
suspected of a friendly feeling to Mr O'Brien or his policy. Woe to
them if they were! In the expressive phrase of Mr O'Donnell, they were
"made to suffer for it."

The proud independence and incorruptibility which the Party boasted in
Parnell's day of power now also began to give way. With the accession
of the Liberal Party to office in 1906 the Nationalist members began
to beseech favours. It may be it was only in the first instance that
they sought J.P.