certain orators speak of the "last ditch" they must be taken to mean
that which has most mud in it. The old methods are already once more in
operation. The wicked lying of previous campaigns no doubt cannot be
repeated: bigotry will make no further experiments in Pigottry. But a
resolute attempt, lavishly financed and directed by masters of the art
of defamation, will be made to blacken Ireland. Every newspaper in every
remotest country-town in England will be deluged with syndicated venom.
The shop-keeper will wrap up his parcels in Orange posters, and the
working-man will, I hope, light his pipe for years to come with
pamphlets of the same clamant colour. Irishmen, or at all events persons
born in Ireland, will be found to testify that they belong to a
barbarous people which has never ceased from barbarism, and that they
are not fit to govern themselves. Politicians who were never known to
risk a five-pound note in helping to develop Ireland will toss down
their fifties to help to defame her. Such is the outlook. Against this
campaign of malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness it is the duty of
every good citizen to say his word, and in the following pages I say
mine. This little book is not a compendium of facts, and so does not
trench on the province of Mr Stephen Gwynn M.P.'s admirable "Case for
Home Rule." It does not discuss the details, financial or otherwise, of
a statesmanlike settlement. Such suggestions as I had to make I have
already made in "Home Rule Finance," and the reader will find much
ampler treatment of the whole subject in "The Framework of Home Rule,"
by Mr Erskine Childers, and "Home Rule Problems," edited by Mr Basil
Williams. In general, my aim has been to aid in humanising the Irish
Question. The interpretation of various aspects of it, here offered, is
intended to be not exhaustive but provocative, a mere set of shorthand
rubrics any one of which might have been expanded into a chapter.
Addressing the English reader with complete candour, I have attempted to
recommend to him that method of approach, that mental attitude which