inct becomes the conviction that the present difficulty is rather
social and economic than political. It is far more a question,
apparently, of stomach than of brain. The complaints which are poured
out on every side refer not in the least to politics. Very few in
Mayo, and hardly anybody at all in Connemara, seem to take any account
of Home Rule, or of any other rule except that of the Land League. The
possibility of a Parliament on College-green affects the people of the
West far less than the remotest chance of securing some share of the
land. If ever popular disaffection were purely agrarian, it is now, so
far as this part of Ireland is concerned. Orators and politicians from
O'Connell until now have spoken of Repeal and Reform; but it is more
than probable that the Connaught peasant always understood that he was
to be emancipated from some of his burdens. All his ideas are
dominated by the single one of land. He knows and cares for very
little else. He is superstitious to an astounding degree, and his
ignorance passes all understanding--that is, on every subject but the
single one of land. And the land he knows of is that in his own
county, or home section of a county. But his knowledge of this is
singularly and curiously exact. Either by his own experience or by
tradition he is perfectly acquainted with the topography of his own
locality and with the history of its present and former proprietors
and occupants. With perfect precision he will point out a certain
tract of country and tell how, in the old, old time, it was, "reigned
over" by the O'Flahertys, and then was owned by the Blakes, who
disposed of part of their country to the present possessors. He knows
perfectly well how the great Martin country came first into the hands
of the Law Life Insurance Company, and then into those of Mr.
Berridge, and how the latter gentleman came down to Ballynahinch, of
the traditional avenue, extending for forty miles to Galway. More than
this, he knows how an island was bought by its present owner with so
much on it due to the above-named society. Moreover, he knows the site
and size of the villages depopulated by famine, emigration, or the
"exterminator," and in many cases the very names of the former
tenants. He is a man of one idea--that the country was once prosperous
and is now wretched, not in consequence of natural causes but of
oppression and mismanagement. When he shouted in favour of Repeal he
meant Land. When he ap