I do not think that this either will tell the tale, but I do think there
is a story to be told--I imagine an esoteric wing to the Unionist Party.
I imagine that Party includes a secret organisation--they may be
Orangemen, they may be Masons, and, if there be such, I would dearly
like to know what the metaphysic of their position is, and how they
square it with any idea of humanity or social life. Meantime, all this
is surmise, and I, as a novelist, have a notoriously flighty
imagination, and am content to leave it at that.

But this secondary Irish question is not so terrible as it appears. It
is terrible now, it would not be terrible if Ireland had national
independence.

The great protection against a lie is--not to believe it; and Ireland,
in this instance, has that protection. The claims made by the Unionist
Wing do not rely solely on the religious base. They use all the
arguments. It is, according to them, unsafe to live in Ireland. (Let us
leave this insurrection of a week out of the question.) Life is not safe
in Ireland. Property shivers in terror of daily or nightly
appropriation. Other, undefined, but even more woeful glooms and creeps,
wriggle stealthily abroad.

These things are not regarded in Ireland, and, in truth, they are not
meat for Irish consumption. Irish judges are presented with white
gloves with a regularity which may even be annoying to them, and were it
not for political trouble they would be unable to look their salaries in
the face. The Irish Bar almost weep in chorus at the words "Land Act,"
and stare, not dumbly, on destitution. These tales are meant for England
and are sent there. They will cease to be exported when there is no