All thinking is a fining down of one's ideas, and thus far we have come
to the statement of Ireland's second question. It is not Catholic or
Nationalist, nor have I said that it is entirely Protestant and
Unionist, but it is on the extreme wing of this latter party that
responsibility must be laid. It is difficult, even for an Irishman
living in Ireland, to come on the real political fact which underlies
Irish Protestant politics, and which fact has consistently opposed and
baffled every attempt made by either England or Ireland to come to
terms. There is such a fact, and clustered around it is a body of men
whose hatred of their country is persistent and deadly and unexplained.

One may make broad generalisations on the apparent situation and
endeavour to solve it by those. We may say that loyalty to England is
the true centre of their action. I will believe it, but only to a point.
Loyalty to England does not inevitably include this active hatred, this
blindness, this withering of all sympathy for the people among whom one
is born, and among whom one has lived in peace, for they have lived in
peace amongst us. We may say that it is due to the idea of privilege and
the desire for power. Again, I will accept it up to a point--but these
are cultural obsessions, and they cease to act when the breaking-point
is reached.

I know of only two mental states which are utterly without bowels or
conscience. These are cowardice and greed. Is it to a synthesis of these
states that this more than mortal enmity may be traced? What do they
fear, and what is it they covet? What can they redoubt in a country
which is practically crimeless, or covet in a land that is almost as
bare as a mutton bone? They have mesmerised themselves, these men, and
have imagined into our quiet air brigands and thugs and titans, with all
the other notabilities of a tale for children.