Yet its inhabitants were to be sold as though they were African slaves, for the sole purpose of getting votes for the Liberal Government.

I was one day invited by Froude to come to his home to argue out the Irish question with Mr. Jacob Bright and Mr. John Morley.

I counted on having Mr. Froude on my side, knowing his strong views, but as host he would not interfere.  However, Miss Cobbe was there, and to my mind was equal to any of the company.  With her on my side, I flatter myself we were too many for the others; but the worst of all arguments is that the arguing rarely serves any purpose except to make either party more obstinate.

I knew John Bright very well.

He was far and away the most honest man of all the Liberal party, and he fully realised the fact that a visible concentration of property and universal suffrage could not exist together.  He was therefore anxious to enlarge the number of proprietors, but he did not countenance it being done entirely at the expense of the English Government without the tenants having to find such a sum of money out of their own pockets as would give them an interest in paying off the Government charges.

He was a very broad-minded man, with a simplicity of character which was admirable.  I liked him much, and my one complaint against him was that he would never accept my invitations to come and pay me a visit in Kerry.

I never heard him make a speech, but with his beautiful voice it was a great treat to hear him read Milton.  On one occasion he took me to the House specially to see Mr. Gladstone, but after nearly an hour he had reluctantly to tell me that the Prime Minister could not find leisure for our conversation that day owing to pressure of business, and another opportunity never came.

Although I regret not having met Mr. Gladstone, I yet feel glad that I never shook him by the hand.  I may here mention that I never met Mr. Parnell, though I have seen him in the House.

From my point of view Mr. John Morley has a dual existence.  As man and as historian he is Jekyl, but as politician he is Hyde.

There is a well-known story about him, so familiar to some of us that it is possibly forgotten in England, wherefore I venture to relate it once more.

He was on a car, and asked the driver:—­

‘Well, Pat, you’ll be having great times when you get Home Rule?’

‘We will, your honour—­for a week,’ replied the man.

‘Why only a week?’ inquired the politician.

‘Driving the quality to the steamers.’

CHAPTER XVI

GLADSTONIAN LEGISLATION

Although the exact measure of my appreciation of the Irish policy of the most dangerous Englishman of the nineteenth century has already been clearly indicated by casual remarks in previous chapters, that will not absolve me from duly setting forth some sketch of the inestimable amount of evil which resulted from the interest he unfortunately took in my unhappy land.