the English landlords[125]; they are men found guilty of not denouncing intimidation which led to crime and outrage, but of persisting in it with a knowledge of its effect.[126] They are proved to have made payments to compensate persons injured in the commission of crime[127]; they are men who have solicited and taken the money of Patrick Ford, the advocate of dynamite; and have invited and obtained the co-operation of the Clan-na-Gael.[128] Their whole system of agitation has been utterly unlike that of honourable agitators, conspirators, or rebels; it would have excited the horror of O’Connell; it would have been repudiated with disgust by Davis, by Gavan Duffy, by Smith O’Brien, and the other Irish leaders of 1848.  The men who now ask for our confidence have in their attack upon England forgotten what was due to Ireland; they have deliberately taught Irish peasants lessons of dishonesty, oppression, and cruelty, which the farmers of Ireland may take years to unlearn.  Of the degradation which they have gradually inflicted upon the English Parliament one is glad to say little.  It is, however, well that the House of Commons should recollect that parliamentary debates are open to all the world and that Englishmen and Englishwomen see no reason why brutalities of expression should be tolerated in the oldest representative Assembly of Europe which would be reproved in any respectable English meeting.  But you can sometimes trust men’s capacity where you cannot trust their moral feeling.  Unfortunately the Irish Parliamentary party have given us examples of their ability in matters of government which are not reassuring.  The scenes of Committee Room No. 15[129] are a rehearsal of parliamentary life under Home Rule at Dublin.

But the Gladstonians, we shall be told, guarantee the good faith of their associates.  Unfortunately, as judges of character the Gladstonians are out of court.  The leader who first obtained their confidence was Mr. Parnell.  If the Home Rule Bill of 1886 had become law Mr. Parnell would have become Premier of Ireland, and we should have been bidden to put trust in his loyalty and his integrity.  There are no Gladstonians now who think Mr. Parnell trustworthy.  Why should they be better judges of the trustworthiness of Mr. Dillon, Mr. M’Carthy, or Mr. Davitt, than they were of the character of the statesman who was the leader, friend or patron of the whole Irish Parliamentary party?  Note, however—­for in this matter it is essential to make one’s meaning perfectly clear—­I do not allege, or suppose, that the assurances of the Irish leaders are mendacious.  They believe, I doubt not, what they say at the moment; but their words mean very little.  In a sense they believed, or did not disbelieve, the slanderous accusations which filled the pages of United Ireland.  In a sense they now believe that the Home Rule Bill is a satisfactory compromise.  But the belief in each case must be considered essentially superficial.