“That we, the members of the Mayo County Council, congratulate the gallant Boers on their brilliant defeats of the troops of the pirate Saxon.  That we hope that a just Providence will strengthen the arms of these farmer fighters in their brave struggle for their independence.  And we trust that as Babylon fell, and as Rome fell, so also may fall the race and nation whose creed is the creed of greed, and whose god is the god of Mammon.”

And by 1902, when the next triennial elections were coming on, the mask was thrown off.  The Freeman’s Journal (the principal Nationalist organ) said:—­

    “In every County or District Council where a landlord, however
    amiable, or personally estimable, offers himself for election,
    the answer of the majority must be the same:  ’No admittance
    here.’”
And J. Redmond stated the case still more plainly: 

“We have in our hands a weapon recently won, the full force of which is not yet, I believe, thoroughly understood by the English Government or by ourselves.  I mean the weapon of freely-elected County Councils and District Councils who to-day form a network of National organizations all over Ireland, and who to-morrow, I doubt not, if the other organizations were struck, would be willing to come forward and take their place, and, in their Council Chambers, carry on the National work.”

Pledges in the following form were presented for signature to all candidates by the United Irish League (except of course in north-east Ulster):—­

“I ——­ hereby pledge myself, if elected to represent the ——­ Division on the County Council, to promote the interests of the United Irish League, and to resign my position whenever called upon to do so by the ——­ Divisional Executive.”

So completely has the policy been carried out that by 1911, to quote the words of Mr. FitzGibbon, M.P. (to whom I have previously referred):—­

“There was not a landlord in the country who could get his agent returned as District Councillor or County Councillor, or even his eldest son or himself.  The Organization had emancipated the people; it had given them the power which their enemies had wielded; it had cleared the road for Ireland’s freedom.”

At present Unionists and Nationalists are pretty evenly divided in the County Councils of Ulster; in the other three Provinces amongst 703 County Councillors there are only fifteen Unionists.  In other words, the Act has enabled the Nationalist party to carry out the plan laid down by Lalor of taking quiet and peaceable possession of all the rights and powers of government, as a stepping-stone towards Independence.

Of course it may be said with much truth that if the large majority of the people are Nationalists they are perfectly justified in choosing Nationalists as their representatives.  But that is not the point.  The real point is that in spite of the protestations of the Nationalists at the time of the passing of the Act, politics in their bitterest form have been brought in, and the Unionist minority have been deprived of all share in the local government of the country.