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There was a debating society, dramatic in its manner of carrying on its business, at which three or four Irish Home-Rulers were accustomed to argue among themselves, before a mixed audience of Englishmen and Irishmen, as to the futility of English government. Here Mr. O'Mahony was popular among the debaters, and was paid for his services.
He could see that the quarrel was not entirely one between Protestant and Catholic as it used to be, but still he could not get it out of his mind, but that the old causes were producing in a different way their old effects. Whiteboys, Terryalts, Ribbonmen, Repeaters, Physical-Forcemen, Fenians, Home-Rulers, Professors of Dynamite, and American-Irish, were, to his thinking, all the same.
When the Land Bill was passed the Landleague was in full power; boycotting had become the recognised weapon of an illegal association; and the Home-Rulers of the day, the party, that is, who represented the Landleague, were already in such possession of large portions of the country as to prevent the possibility of carrying out the laws.
Persse as he had said, most unjustly, of Sir Nicholas, that he was one of them. Mr. Persse was well-known as a Tory and a Protestant, and an indefatigable opponent of Home-Rulers. To Sir Nicholas, in the minds of some men, there attached a slight stain of his religion. "I will keep the pistol in my pocket," said Tom Daly, without turning his eyes away from the belt of trees.
But the latter-day Home-Rulers, of whom I speak, brought their politics, their aspirations, and their money from New York, and boldly made use of the means which the British Constitution afforded them to upset the British Constitution as established in Ireland. That they should not succeed in doing this is the determination of all, at any rate on this side of the Channel.
I have met gentlemen who, as Home-Rulers, have simply desired to obtain for their country an increase of power in the management of their own affairs. These men have been loyal and patriotic, and it might perhaps be well to meet their views. The Channel no doubt does make a difference between Liverpool and Dublin.
As he was a sincerely honest man, he did think that something good for his old country would be achieved by Home Rule; though how the Home-Rulers would set to work when Home Rule should be the law of the land, he had not the remotest conception. There were many reasons, therefore, why he should be a fit member for an Irish county.
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