as the economic hope of the
country, and he regards therefore the actual "campaigning" of the
self-styled "Nationalists" as essentially anti-national, inasmuch as its
methods are demoralising the people of Ireland, and destroying that
respect for law and for private rights which lies at the foundation of
civil order and of property. In his opinion, "Home Rule," to the people
in general, means simply ownership of the land which they are to live
on, and to live by. How that ownership shall be brought about peaceably,
fairly, and without wrong or outrage to any man or class of men is a
problem of politics to be worked out by politicians, and by public men.
That men, calling themselves Catholics, should be led on to attempt to
bring this or any other object about by immoral and criminal means is
quite another matter, and a matter falling within the domain, not of the
State primarily, but of the Church.

As to this, Bishop Healy, who was in Rome not very long ago, and who,
while in Rome, had more than one audience of His Holiness by command,
has no doubt whatever that the Vatican will insist upon the abandonment
and repudiation by Catholics of boycotting, and "plans of campaign," and
all such devices of evil. Nor has the Bishop any doubt that whenever the
Holy Father speaks the priests and the people of Ireland will obey.

To say this, of course, is only to say that the Bishop believes the
priests of Ireland to be honest priests, and the people of Ireland to be
good Catholics.

If he is mistaken in this it will be a doleful thing, not for the
Church, but for the Irish priests, and for the Irish people. No Irishman
who witnessed the magnificent display made at Rome this year, of the
scope and power of the Catholic Church, can labour under any delusions
on that point.

From the Bishop's residence we went to call upon the Protestant rector
of Portumna, Mr. Crawford. The handsome Anglican church stands within an
angle of the park, and the parsonage is a very substantial mansion. Mr.
Crawford, the present rector, who is a man of substance, holds a fine
farm of the Clanricarde estate, at a peppercorn rent, and he is tenant
also of another holding at L118 a year, as to which he has brought the
agent into Court, with the object, as he avers, of setting an example to
the other tenants, and inducing them, like himself, to fight under the
law instead of against it. He is not, however, in arrears, and in that
respect sets a better