fail to overtake this conscious sin against the national
ideal. It met with its own condign punishment before many years were
over. To show the veritable depths of baseness to which the so-called
National Movement had fallen it need only be stated that it was
charged against their official organ--_The Freeman's Journal
_--that no less than eighteen members of its staff had obtained
positions of profit under the Crown, including a Lord Chancellorship,
an Under-secretaryship, Judgeships, Crown Prosecutorships, University
Professorships, Resident Magistracies, Local Government
Inspectorships, etc. In this connection it is also worthy of mention
that when the premises of this concern were burnt out in the course of
the Easter Week Rebellion it was reendowed for "national" purposes,
with a Treasury grant of L60,000, being twice the amount which the
then directors of the _Freeman_ confessed to be the business
value of the property.

Thus did the "Board of Erin" attract to its side all the most selfish
and disreputable elements in Irish Catholic life, and thus also did it
repel and disgust the more broad-minded and tolerant Protestant
patriots whom the All-for-Ireland programme, under happier
circumstances, would have undoubtedly won over to the side of Home
Rule. Much might even yet be forgiven to the men who had the destiny
of Ireland in their hands if they had shown any striking capacity to
exact a measure of self-government sufficiently big and broad to
justify the national demand as then understood. But they showed
neither strength nor wisdom, neither courage nor sagacity in their
dealings with the English Liberal leaders and old Parliamentary hands
against whom they were pitted. They were hopelessly out-manoeuvred and
overmatched at every stage of the game. It is but just to state that
the members of the Party as a whole had scarcely an atom of
responsibility for these miserable failures and defects of policy.
They owed their election to "the machine." They were the complaisant
bondsmen of the secret Order. Whatever they felt they dared not utter
a word which would bring the wrath of "the Bosses" upon their heads.
They were never candidly consulted as to tactics or strategy, or even
first principles.

The decisions of the little ring of three or four who dominated the
situation within the Party were sometimes, it may be, submitted to
them for their formal approval, but more often than otherwise this
show of formal co